| Summary/Abstract |
I am honored to have been chosen as the James Madison Lecturer for 2014. In considering my topic I quickly decided on the global politics of climate change because it is becoming increasingly clear that climate change is one of the major political and institutional, as well as ecological, challenges of our time. When—not if—the ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica melt significantly and the warming oceans expand, sea levels will rise. Climate warming probably will also cause stronger storms and other forms of extreme weather; agricultural production will suff er, especially at extreme levels of climate change. Such sea level rise could lead to the inundation of areas in which more than a billion people live, mostly in Asia. The implications of climate change are not simply minor adjustments in life-style, increased seasonal discomfort, and shifts of fl ora and fauna toward the poles, but major disruptions in human life as well as in natural ecology.
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