Social Transformation for Climate Change

Nicholas Low is a Professorial Fellow of the University of Melbourne. After qualifying as an architect at the Architectural Association in London, he took his Master of Urban Planning degree at Strathclyde University, Glasgow. Tutored by sociologist, Dr Sean Damer, he found that there was much more to town planning than drawing patterns on maps. At the core of planning lay political doctrines and institutions. Nick then worked as a city planner in the outer London Borough of Hillingdon. After moving to Melbourne University in 1974 as a lecturer in planning, he studied the evolution of cities, planning, and environments and their political contexts – with growing concern for the substitution of the market and politicians for professional planning. In the 1990s turning towards environmental planning, he found that democracies were failing to prepare for an overheating world. In 1997 he convened the first international conference on environmental justice (Environmental Justice: Global Ethics for the 21st Century). He has authored, co-authored, or edited 11 books including Planning, Politics and the State (sole author, 1991), Justice, Society and Nature: An Exploration of Political Ecology (1998 with Brendan Gleeson), The Green City: Sustainable Homes, Sustainable Suburbs (2005, with Gleeson, Green, and Radovic), Transforming Urban Transport: The Ethics, Politics and Practices of Sustainable Mobility (ed. 2013), and Being a Planner in Society: For People, Planet, Place (sole author, 2020). His work is also published in many international refereed journals and book chapters.

• CONTENTSAcknowledgementsPART 1 TRANSFORMATIONS1. Climate Transformation and Social Transformation2. The Great Transformation3. The Arrival of Social Democracy in Britain4. The Neoliberal Regression5. Communism to Capitalism6. The State and Civil Society in TransformationsPART 2 THE CLIMATE TRANSFORMATION7. Climate Crisis8. Democracy and the International Order9. Inequality and Poverty10. Remaking Democracy for a World of Climate Change11. Climate Transformation: Action, Actors, and Activists12. What We Can Learn from the PastBibliography: Key ReadingsIndex

"A great book demonstrating the need for major social transformation in the future.A must-read."Thomas Piketty, Professor at L’École des Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris School of Economics, France, and Co-director of the World Inequality Lab and the World Inequality Database"In Social Transformation for Climate Change, Nicholas Low throws down a double challenge, to recognize the climate emergency as the defining crisis of our age, and to take up the democratic transformation of society required in response. This far-sighted, deeply researched, and well-reasoned book is required reading for all those concerned with the future of the planet."Robert Lake, Professor Emeritus of urban planning and policy development and a memberof the Graduate Faculties in the Department of Geography, Rutgers University, USA"A spellbinding account of the ecological, social and democratic crisis ofhypercapitalism and how we might collectively transform it into a better placefor all."David Hayward, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy and the Social Economy at RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia“Nicholas Low has done something very special with this book. With innovative rigour he has examined climate change, its historical roots, and its political and economic dynamics, and has suggested the direction in which humans must collectively move in order to avert a catastrophe. No single book can provide the final word on that, but in indicating the direction he has given us a much clearer understanding of the way forward.”Jim Falk, Honorary Professorial Fellow in the Faculty of Science at Melbourne University, Australia, and Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He chairs the International Advisory Committee for Regional Action on Climate Change – Japan