COP29 Reading List: Education and the Environment

From 11th-22nd November the 29th UN Climate Change Conference, COP29, takes place in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Set to be attended by over 40,000 delegates, the convention provides an opportunity for world leaders to agree on decisive action to limit global warming to 1.5°C. More specifically, the conversations at COP29 will centre on setting a new ‘climate finance’ target for the world’s wealthiest nations. These funds will help lower-income countries cut their carbon emissions, and provide aid to those most vulnerable to the unavoidable effects of the climate crisis.

But how did we reach this tipping point, why is current policy not enough, and is anything actually changing? Our COP29 reading list comprises thirteen climate-conscious titles that attempt to answer these questions – from oil in the Middle East and award-winning critiques of ‘green capitalism’, to far-right environmentalism and the legal case against Heathrow’s expansion.

Find the full reading list below. Use code CLIMATE29 at checkout for 29% off RRP on our COP29 reading list titles. UK only, offer valid between 18th-30th November 2024.

Carbon colonialism

Outsourcing climate breakdown shows how the impact of climate change, including the slow-burn disasters of droughts and floods, is traded out by wealthier countries and imported by less wealthy ones as the price of economic growth.

The Value of a Whale

This book shows that beyond the fossil fuel industry, it is the lesser-known but vastly more powerful world of asset managers and shadow banking which is inhibiting our ability to pursue climate and environmental justice. Those with the influence to effect global change increasingly see commodifying nature as the only way to do so.

Global solidarities against water grabbing

Globally, people are organizing against water privatization and to reclaim the public sphere. These struggles demonstrate how people are linking their disparate fights to win against private profit-driven interests; water is at the heart of this book, but the book is as much about collective struggle and popular organization as it is about water.

The political ecology of colonial capitalism

The political ecology of colonial capitalism reveals how the co-production of race and nature is a fundamental dynamic of the capitalist world-system.

Trade winds

This book recounts Christiaan De Beukelaer's personal odyssey aboard a sail cargo vessel and offers a compelling insight into the developments the shipping industry is undertaking to cut its carbon emissions

Expansion rebellion

This is a story of hope in the face of widespread consternation over the global climate crisis. Can the UK expand Heathrow airport, bringing in 700 extra planes a day, and still stay within ambitious carbon budgets? One legal case sought to answer this question.

The ideal river

The ideal river offers a remarkable account of how historic attempts to establish international commissions on three transboundary rivers in the nineteenth century shaped our modern international order.

Visualising far-right environments

This book examines the far right's visual politics of nature, offering original case studies from around the world.

Turning up the heat

The collection brings together theoretical discussions and rigorous empirical analysis by key scholars in order to move Urban Political Ecology into current debates about urbanization and climate change.

Oil and the political economy in the Middle East

This is the first comprehensive analysis of the Middle East political economy in response to the oil price decline in 2014. Based on a heuristic framework inspired by rentierism, the volume contains original studies on Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

False profits of ethical capital

This book is a timely study of an important political economic phenomenon: ESG investing and stakeholder capitalism. This book encourages new ways of thinking about corporate responsibility and how to contest it.

WWF and Arctic environmentalism

This book explores WWF's approach toward engagement in the Circumpolar North and reasons why it is relatively well-received by key northern audiences. It argues that the foundation of WWF's success is based on four inter-related strategic pillars: legacy, networks, scientific research and communication style.

Foundations of social ecological economics

This book presents social ecological economics as an emerging paradigm combining critical social science with structural realism to offer a radical, theoretically grounded, alternative economics based on ethical social provisioning and meeting needs. The foundations include its radical roots, philosophical presuppositions and preanalytic vision.

Cookies