Climate Change Action and the Responsibility to Protect: A Common Cause

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 46 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.

Ben L Parr is a Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Project. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Melbourne and is author of the book, Australian Climate Policy and Diplomacy: Government-Industry Discourses. Between 2015 and 2018, he provided policy analysis and advice on the Paris climate agreement to former US Vice President the Hon Al Gore and his policy team. He has also worked on subnational climate and energy policy. Between 2011 and 2012 (during the Libya intervention), he worked as Assistant to key R2P architect the Hon Gareth Evans AC KC, and in 2023 published the book, Climate Change Action and The Responsibility to Protect: A Common Cause.