Climate Change, Political Economy, and the Problem of Comparative Institutions Analysis

Abstract

This chapter use the principles of ‘robust political economy’ to consider institutional alternatives to address the problem of anthropogenic climate change. It argues that non-ideal comparisons between alternatives are necessary to judge the likely ‘real-world’ consequences of adopting different policy regimes to address the climate change dilemma, but that the global character of the problem and the timescales required to judge the relative effectiveness of any institutional response prevents the production of the necessary comparisons. In the case of climate change, therefore, there are no empirically robust comparative institutional claims that can be made.