Climate Change Action and the Responsibility to Protect

This book brings together two important fields in the study of international politics and policy: climate change adaptation and mitigation (climate action) and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Both have attracted strong scholarly attention in each of their respective research silos, but there is yet to be a strong research push that explores the relationship between the two.Filling this gap, Ben L. Parr argues that the climate action and the R2P agendas share a common goal: to protect vulnerable human populations from large-scale harm. To substantiate this argument, Parr reveals where the historical, conceptual, and operational parallels exist between the two agendas, and where and when researchers and practitioners from both camps might work together in practice to achieve their common goal in the challenging years ahead. Notably, the book builds on recent efforts by Western governments in the UK, US and EU to integrate climate action policies into conflict prevention and response policies. To achieve this, the volume situates a variety of climate action policies alongside the forty-six policy options found in the R2P operational framework (commonly known as the R2P toolbox) across its prevention, reaction, and rebuilding phases.Climate Change Action and The Responsibility to Protect will be of significant interest to policy-orientated students and scholars, those working at the academic-policy interface in the NGO community, as well as those working in government and international organisations.

"Without diluting or diverting the core message of ‘R2P’ – designed specifically to energize the world’s response to genocide and other heinous mass atrocity crimes – Parr creatively applies its principles and methodology to meeting the existential challenge of climate change. A thoughtful, stimulating, practical, and very-readable exercise in the cross-fertilization of ideas." Gareth Evans, Former Australian Foreign Minister, President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group and author of ‘The Responsibility to Protect’

Ben L. Parr has researched climate policy and politics since 2009 and is a former staffer to R2P co-creator, Professor the Hon Gareth Evans AC KC.