Section of the Standing Group on Environmental Politics

As environmental crises intensify, addressing them through political action has become more urgent than ever. From rapidly accelerating climate change to mass biodiversity loss, the natural world now faces unprecedented challenges that demand swift, decisive action. Yet, global attention to these issues is waning, overshadowed by geopolitical tensions, democratic backlash, and political polarisation. Major public, private, and research entities continue to pledge their support for carbon reduction, biodiversity conservation, and achieving a sustainability transition more generally. Yet, despite a near-constant stream of alarming news about environmental degradation and the inadequacy of current responses, meaningful, sustained action remains elusive. Existing commitments are often weakened by conflicting priorities, divergent sustainability visions, and a lack of coordinated implementation. It is clear that the required actions impose costs, and this may help to explain why countries around the world remain hesitant to commit to the policy goals that are required while showing lackluster implementation of the insufficient goals to which they have committed. Continuing volatility in geopolitics presents further complications to environmental progress. In this evolving political context, this section aims to run ten in-person panels plus up to ten virtual panels focusing on current issues in and approaches to environmental politics and policy. The overarching aim is to draw together conceptual expertise and rigorous empirical analysis on the wide range of research fields and subjects of study under the umbrella of environmental politics. We want to facilitate both deep and broad discussions on the state and future of the discipline. Against this backdrop and following the positive experiences from past General Conferences, the idea is to have several sets of thematically related panels, which explore and discuss single issues in depth, combined with other panels that reflect the breadth of the environmental politics research underway today. With this configuration, we aim to provide a stage for discussion within and across the various research fields and subjects, in order to explore, challenge, and re-configure theories surrounding environmental problems, both new and old. In doing so, we seek to inspire conversation, discussion, and networking opportunities that can form the basis of future research and collaborations. We especially aim to host panels that address interlinkages of environmental, social and economic problems, at a variety of levels (global, regional, sub-/national, local). This includes particular attention to environmental diplomacy and international relations, which has been little discussed at Environmental Politics Sections in previous years, as well as analysis of democratic and populist backlash and eco-fascism against transformative politics and policies. Moreover, to better capture highly dynamic developments, we welcome perspectives that transcend classical political science boundaries, such as works on sufficiency, degrowth and post-growth, and applications of new frameworks and methodologies that aim to push forward this intricate field of study. In line with our ambitions and experiences from the past years, we will invite full panel proposals and paper proposals in November, and select and create panels after the second call has closed in early 2025. The Standing Group has been continuously growing over the last years both in numbers (with more than 500 members to date) and in the diversity of themes it covers. Its sections have been vibrant and over-subscribed in the past. We aim to continue this path and expect to attract a diverse and large number of excellent papers.