Exposing the Paradoxes of Climate and Energy Governance Review by Benjamin K. Sovacool Institute for Energy and the Environment, Vermont Law School and Center for Energy Technologies, School of Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University What’s Wrong with Climate Politics, and How to Fix It. By Paul G. Harris. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2013. 296 pp., $21.80 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-745-65251-1). Institutionalizing Unsustainability: The Paradox of Global Climate Governance. By Hayley Stevenson. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2012. 308 pp., $29.67 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-1-938-16902-1). Influenced by an obsession with economics and technology, most energy and climate analysts frequently ask the wrong questions. They will ponder how large proven reserves of oil and gas are being extracted rather than challenging the need to utilize oil and gas in the first place, or asking whether oil and gas infra- structures are fair to their workers or the communities that live near them. They will assess and model energy prices and technological learning curves, rather than ask how existing energy infrastructures benefit some people to the exclu- sion of others. They will map energy and climate scenarios, track atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, and discuss the pros or pitfalls of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, but refrain from interrogat- ing the underlying logic behind an international economic system that continues to emit dangerous amounts of greenhouse gases. The standard dogma of climate change discourse—that it is a technical prob- lem best left to experts and scientists to resolve—is so entrenched that it is incredibly refreshing when knowledgeable people offer an alternative view. It is even more rewarding when their analysis is penetrating, well written, and well argued, as is the case with both Paul G. Harris’s (2013) What’s Wrong with Climate Politics and Hayley Stevenson’s (2012) Institutionalizing Unsustainability. Harris begins by arguing that there are three fundamental reasons we have failed to develop adequate political responses to climate change. The “cancer of Westphalia” refers to an international system which encourages countries to fight for narrow, short-term interests. The “malignancy of great polluters” refers to the inability of the United States and China to do anything about it. The “addic- tions of modernity” refer to growing levels of pollution that accompany our mod- ern lifestyles. This tripartite framing of challenges then leads us to Harris’s three solutions. We should seek “people-centered diplomacy,” which would encourage international agreements that put human beings first. We should accept “differ- entiated responsibility,” the notion of common but differentiated responsibilities, or contraction and convergence. We should prioritize “the consumption of hap- piness,” rather than the consumption of material things or the consolidation of wealth. That is, we should cultivate human values that premise themselves on suf- ficiency, limits, and sustainability, instead of endless growth and consumption. Beyond its presentation of these three challenges and solutions, at least four other attributes set Harris’s book apart from those that have come before it: Sovacool, Benjamin K. (2014) Exposing the Paradoxes of Climate and Energy Governance. International Studies Review, doi: 10.1111/misr.12114 © 2014 International Studies Association International Studies Review (2014) 16, 294–297