Hosted by the Department of Social Policy
2024 is a crucial year for climate policy and the pursuit of net-zero targets, with many pivotal elections taking place in the coming months. Experts will discuss how the outcomes of these elections could influence international commitments to greenhouse gas reduction and the implementation of the Paris Agreement. The session will explore the balance between economic and environmental policies in these regions and examine potential shifts in climate finance and international cooperation. This timely discussion aims to provide insights into the future trajectory of global climate policy and the collective effort to combat climate change.2024 is a crucial year for climate policy and the pursuit of net-zero targets, with many pivotal elections taking place in the coming months. Experts will discuss how the outcomes of these elections could influence international commitments to greenhouse gas reduction and the implementation of the Paris Agreement. The session will explore the balance between economic and environmental policies in these regions and examine potential shifts in climate finance and international cooperation. This timely discussion aims to provide insights into the future trajectory of global climate policy and the collective effort to combat climate change.
Speakers:
Professor Sarah Birch is Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Economy, King's College London, as well as Director of Research. Sarah's research is mainly focused on the empirical study of political ethics, including electoral integrity, ethical reasoning in politics, and corruption perceptions. She also conducts research on popular perceptions of, and reactions to, environmental problems. Sarah previously held Chairs at the University of Essex and University of Glasgow. She is a fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Public Policy Research.
Professor Stephen Fisher’s research has primarily been on public opinion and how people vote in elections, in Britain and cross-nationally. The main themes of his research have been attitudes to climate change, ethnic minority political attitudes and behaviour, analysis of election outcomes, political geography, election forecasting, tactical voting and quantitative research methods. As well as writing academic research articles, Stephen has worked with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on a global survey of climate change attitudes (The Peoples’ Climate Vote), provided election predictions for the BBC (including exit polls for general elections), and commentary on elections and public opinion for the media more broadly. As well as expert comment, this includes broadcast and radio interviews for BBC, CNBC, Al-Jazeera and others. Stephen’s blog with election forecasts and analysis is at ElectionsEtc.com.
Dr Michael Lerner is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Public Policy in the Department of Government. Michael studies comparative environmental politics with a broad interest in the challenges and strategies related to adopting timely policy responses to environmental change. His research focuses primarily on policy advocacy, including corporate lobbying on climate change, transnational advocacy networks, and the innovation and diffusion of environmental policy. Michael has published his work in the American Journal of Political Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and other peer-reviewed journals.
Dr Pavithra Suryanarayan is an Assistant Professor in the Government Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Dr. Suryanarayan studies how the politics of social status shapes state capacity, redistributive preferences, and vote choice in ranked societies like India and the United States. Dr Suryanarayan pursues these research questions using methods in historical political economy that emphasise causal identification, spatial and survey analysis, and archival research. Beyond work on ranked systems, Dr Suryanarayan has developed two further substantive areas of research: the relationship between state capacity and class voting in a cross-national perspective, and party organisation and party system institutionalisation in the Indian states. Dr Suryanarayan's work has won discipline-wide awards and been featured in the New York Times, Le Monde, The Economist, and The Hindu amongst others. Dr Suryanarayan is also an editor and contributor to Broadstreet, an inter-disciplinary academic blog on historical political economy.
Chair:
Dr Liam F. Beiser-McGrath is an Assistant Professor in International Social and Public Policy in the Department of Social Policy, Associate of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and Affiliate of the Data Science Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science. They are also an Editor for the journal Environmental Politics and the organiser of EPG Online, an online seminar series covering Environmental Politics and Governance.
Their research primarily focuses on the political economy of climate change, using experimental research designs and machine learning. This research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Nature Climate Change, the Journal of Politics, Science Advances, European Journal of Political Research, Comparative Political Studies, Political Analysis, Climatic Change, Political Science Research & Methods, Environmental Politics, Global Environmental Politics, the Journal of European Social Policy, Regulation and Governance, Electoral Studies, and the Journal of Public Policy.