A Careful Revolution

Towards a Low-Emissions Future

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Print publication:

eBook publication:

Pages: 232

RRP: $17.99

ISBN: 9781988545684

DOI: 10.7810/9781988545684

Out of print – digital edition available through ebook retailers and our BWB Collections platform.

‘I am 29 years old. I was born just before the Kyoto Protocol was signed, and since then global mean temperatures have risen by an estimated 0.2°C per decade . . . in my lifetime I am likely to experience a world that is 2°C warmer, perhaps as much as 4°C, and has more droughts, fires and floods.’ Sylvia Nissen

Climate crisis is upon us. By choice or necessity, New Zealand will transition to a low-emissions future. But can this revolution be careful? Can it be attentive to the disruptions it inevitably creates? Or will carefulness simply delay and dilute the changes that future people require of us? This timely collection brings together eleven authors to explore the politics and practicalities of the low-emissions transition, touching on issues of justice, tikanga, trade-offs, finance, futurism, adaptation, and more.

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  • Introduction, David Hall
  • Chapter 1: Trade-offs and tough choices, Amelia Sharman
  • Chapter 2: A tika transition, Maria Bargh
  • Chapter 3: Our world up-ended, Kya Raina Lal
  • Chapter 4: An intergenerational view, Sylvia Nissen
  • Chapter 5: A just transition, Sam Huggard
  • Chapter 6: Mobilising capital for change, Matt Whineray
  • Chapter 7: The adaptation gap, Judy Lawrence
  • Chapter 8: Imagining our way forward, Anne Gibbon and Kaipo Lum
  • Chapter 9: Bringing the people with you, Dave Frame
  • Chapter 10: On care and carelessness, David Hall
  • Appendix 1: Proposed principles of justice, Jonathan Boston and David Hall
  • Appendix 2: Tika transition toolbox, Maria Bargh