About the panel discussion:
There are important links between global financial markets and the global environment. But these links are often obscured by the intellectual silos that divide specialists of global finance and those of the global environment. The failure to draw connections between these two sectors has been particularly apparent during the debates about how to reform the international financial system in the wake of the current global financial crisis. These debates almost always fail to acknowledge environmental issues, while at the same time, current policy discussions about the global environment crisis rarely mention international financial markets.
This panel brings together financial and environmental specialists to discuss questions such as: In what ways are the global financial and environmental crises related? What links could policymakers make between international financial reforms and environmental reforms? What lessons can be learned from one sector for the other?
Panelists:
Jennifer Clapp
CIGI Chair and Program Leader, Environment and Resources; Professor, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo
Jennifer Clapp's recent books include Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment (co-authored with Peter Dauvergne, MIT Press, 2005) and Corporate Power in Global Agri-Food Governance (co-edited with Doris Fuchs, MIT Press, 2009). She is also co-editor of the journal Global Environmental Politics (MIT Press)
Adam Harmes
Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Western Ontario
Adam Harmes is the author of Unseen Power: How Mutual Funds Threaten the Political and Economic Wealth of Nations and The Return of the State: Protestors, Power-Brokers and the New Global Compromise.
Eric Helleiner
CIGI Chair, International Economic Governance; Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Waterloo
Eric Helleiner's most recent co-edited books are The Future of the Dollar (Cornell University Press, 2009) and Global Finance in Crisis: The Politics of International Regulatory Change (Routledge, 2009). He is also author of States and the Reemergence of Global Finance (Cornell 1994), The Making of National Money (2003) and Towards North American Monetary Union? (McGill-Queen's University Press). He is presently a Trudeau Fellow and is co-editor of the book series Cornell Studies in Money.
Matthew Paterson
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Ottawa
Matthew Paterson's research focuses on the political economy of global environmental change. In addition to a book developing a general theoretical approach out of these interests, he has developed them in relation to global climate change and the politics of the automobile. His publications include Understanding Global Environmental Politics: Domination, Accumulation, Resistance, (Palgrave 2000), and Automobile Politics: Ecology and Cultural Political Economy (Cambridge University Press 2007).
Tony Porter
Professor, Department of Political Science, McMaster University
Tony Porter conducts research on business regulation and global governance, including especially financial regulation, private and hybrid public/private rulemaking, the organizational effects in governance of technologies, and safety and environmental standards in the automobile industry. He is the author of Globalization and Finance (Polity Press, 2005) and Technology, Governance and Political Conflict in International Industries, (Routledge, 2002). Aside from his teaching and research obligations, Tony is currently the Undergraduate Chair in the Department of Political Science at McMaster University.