The greatest progress so far in decarbonising the global economy has been made by governments that ignored the advice of economists. Investing in new technologies turns out to be a more effective way of changing things than taxing the incumbents. We need to stop being surprised by this and start replicating those successes.

This chapter examines how parties to treaties give effect to them in their domestic (internal) law. Every treaty in force is binding upon the parties and must be performed in good faith (pacta sunt servanda). A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty. A state should therefore adopt any domestic legislation necessary to give effect to the treaty before it consents to be bound. There are two broad approaches to implementation of treaties, depending on a state’s constitutional provisions: monism and dualism. The essence of monism is that a treaty may, without legislation, become part of domestic law once it has been concluded and has entered into force for that state. The practice of France, Germany, The Netherlands, Russia, Poland and Switzerland is examined. Under the dualist approach, the rights and obligations created by treaties have no effect in domestic law unless legislation is in force to give effect to them. UK constitutional practice is examined, together with the interpretation and application of treaties by UK courts. US practice is similarly analysed.

Most research into the impacts of climate change concentrates on what would happen at low degrees of change. We know a great deal about best-case scenarios. Thanks to wilful ignorance among policymakers, and the cultural preferences of scientists, worst-case scenarios are much less considered. We know the least about what matters most.

Despite solar and wind power generating the cheapest electricity in history, around forty countries are still building new coal-burning power plants – the worst thing anyone can do for climate change. How two years of campaigning led to twenty countries committing to phase-out coal power, and what needs to happen next.

This chapter has two purposes. First, to offer a vision of environmental humanities as an interdisciplinary endeavour that involves the core disciplines of the humanities, as well as their connections with other disciplines and ways of working within the academy and beyond. Second, to draw some conclusions from that vision for the kinds of issues of politics, dialogue and ethics that arise from the real-world problems on which environmental humanities bear. In other words, the chapter attempts to operationalise some of the key messages that the environmental humanities might have to propose in the real-world situation of today. This is a matter first of characterising that situation. Environmental humanities can help us make sense of the challenges that arise, albeit not in isolation. The point of the exercise is to seek appropriate forms of integration between a realm of humanities or humanistic thinking about environmental challenges with a scientific mode of thinking. Second, the chapter considers how humanities thinking can bear on action issues that arise from the situation as thus characterised. What kind of action? How can it be justified? Through which practical mechanisms can it be pursued?

Every state possesses the capacity to conclude treaties. Treaties between states may be expressed as being by heads of state or by governments, and less often by state agencies or ministries. Some special cases are examined: the Cook Islands and Niue, the Vatican City (the Holy See), Taiwan, Palestine, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Somaliland, Western Sahara and indigenous peoples. In the case of federations, for the most part, constituent units conclude non-binding instruments with other states or their territorial units. But, in some cases, the state may authorise the conclusion of a binding treaty by a constituent unit. The chapter examines treaty practice in respect of Belgium, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republika Srpska, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Kosovo, and the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions.

This chapter considers the ICJ’s relationship with other courts and tribunals through the dual prism of integration and fragmentation. The author argues that three factors influence the degree of the Court’s integration or fragmentation: the identity of the court, the substance of the law, and the procedures employed. The author selects three legal issues that have been considered by the ICJ and other courts and tribunals in recent years: jurisdiction over issues of immunity involving treaties that do not expressly refer to immunity; inferring specific intent for genocide; and the nature of consular assistance as a treaty obligation, individual right or human right. These issues provide insight into the way that identity, area of law and procedure influence integration or fragmentation among international courts.

In the economy as in ecosystems, one tipping point can lead on to another. Creating cascades of change throughout the global economy is perhaps the only imaginable way we could make the transition to zero emissions at the pace required. This should be the focus of climate change diplomacy throughout this decade. If enough of the world joins in, we might just have a chance.

When we study technology transitions of the past – the shifts from horses to cars, from cesspools to sewers, from traditional farming to intensive agriculture – we can see how they were enabled and accelerated by government policy. Coordinated action by groups of countries could accelerate change even more – through faster innovation, larger economies of scale, and level playing fields where needed. International cooperation of this kind could dramatically accelerate low-carbon transitions in each of the greenhouse-gas-emitting sectors of the global economy. Until now, it has barely been attempted.

The conclusion summarizes the main findings of the book and explores the ambivalent nature of national identity in a transnational world. It argues that the burial dilemmas of minority communities offer a window into the complexities of belonging and membership in an international system that is ordered by nation-states. The death of an individual and the commemorative practices accompanying it make visible a dense web of attachments and allegiances to particular communities and places. Through burial practices, individuals signal who they are, what they value, and where they belong.

Humanity’s situation with climate change is sometimes compared to that of a frog in a slowly boiling pot of water. Most of our climate science takes the form of prediction: telling the frog that in five minutes’ time he will be a little bit warmer. We need more risk assessment: telling the frog that the worst that could happen is he could boil to death, and that this is becoming increasingly likely over time. This approach can give a much clearer picture of the risks of climate change to human health, food security, and coastal cities.

Change in the economy, just as in the climate, can be self-reinforcing, sudden, and irreversible. The world’s fastest transitions to renewable energy and electric vehicles are happening in countries where economic tipping points have been crossed in these sectors. By deliberately targeting these thresholds, we can achieve large-scale change much more quickly than we might expect. To find these opportunities, we need to move away from traditional cost–benefit analysis and adopt a very different approach to decision-making.