Eva Lövbrand

Carbon accounting lies at the heart of the politics of climate change. Ever since the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 1992, nation-states have agreed to keep track of their territorial sources and sinks of carbon and hereby ensure that human interference with the climate system does not reach dangerous levels. Through the adoption of the 2015 Paris Agreement, the concern for carbon has extended across all sectors of society. To keep global mean warming well below 2 degrees C, corporations, cities, citizen groups and individuals are today invited to keep their carbon emissions in check and hereby actively participate in the transition to the carbon neutral society. 

In my research I play with the dual meaning of the term ‘carbon accountability’ to critically examine the practical means by which carbon is accounted for in science, policy and our every-day lives; and the political dynamics by which states, corporations and citizens are held to account for their carbon conduct.

My work is placed in a critical-constructivist research tradition and informed by the nominalist approach to political theorizing advanced by Michel Foucault. Instead of approaching environmental problems as given objects of governance, I ask questions about ‘the how’ of governance. How does climate change become an object of thought and political intervention? How is climate governance accomplished in practical terms? What agent categories and subject positions take form in a rapidly warming world?

2022-2026 Professor in Environmental Change, Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University, Sweden. 

2013-2022 Associate Professor in Environmental Change, Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University, Sweden. 

2008-2013  LiU Research Fellow, Centre for Climate Science and Policy and Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University, Sweden. 

2006-2008 Post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Colorado Boulder and the Department of Political Science, Lund University.

2001-2006 PhD student, Department of Biology and Environmental Science, Kalmar University College, Sweden. 

Tatiana Proisy-Lesenik, Tema Environmental Change, Linköping University. Jointly supervised with Veronica Brodén-Gyberg (LiU) and Cecilia Enberg (LiU). Started in January 2025.

Julia Feine, Department of Political Science, Stockholm University. Jointly supervised with Aysem Mert (SU). Started in August 2023. 

Lövbrand, E., Jernnäs, M. and Gupta, A. (2026) Measure-ability: The Paris Agreement’s Transparency Regime and the Making of the Calculating State, Global Environmental Politics 26 (3): 24–46. https://doi.org/10.1162/GLEP.a.781

Steig, F., Lövbrand, E., Oels, A. et al. (2026) The Show Must Go On? Revisiting the Script of International Climate Cooperation Ten Years After Paris, Global Environmental Politics 26 (3): 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1162/GLEP.e.783

Fischer, A., Lövbrand, E., Joosse, S., Marklund, J. and Förell, N. (2026)  Doing Justice in Transition Governance? Transient Assemblages of Actors, Discourses and Practices Environmental Policy and Governance, 0:1–6 https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.70050

Lövbrand, E., Enberg, C. and Brodén-Gyberg, V. (2025) The will to decarbonize: problematizing European just transition governance, Environmental Policy and Governance, 0:1–14, https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.70019

Holzscheiter, A.,  Josefsson, J.,  Lövbrand, E. and Pantzerhielm, L. (2025): In-Between Worlds: the Unsettled Politics of Child and Youth Representation in International Institutions, Globalizations, DOI: 10.1080/14747731.2025.2471705

Widerberg, O, Bäckstrand, K., Lövbrand, E. Marquardt, J. And Nasiritousi, N. (2024) A cautionary tale for polycentric governance: states’ roles in orchestrating decarbonization, Global Environmental Politics 24 (3): 100–120.

Bohman, A., Evers, C. and Lövbrand, E. (2024) More than One Story: Remaking Community and Place in Sweden’s Transition to a Fossil Free Society, Local Environment 29:4, 433-445.

Marquardt, J., Lövbrand, E. and Buhre, F. (2023) The Politics of Youth Representation at UN Climate Change Conferences: Who Speaks, Who is Spoken of, and Who Listens? Global Environmental Politics, 24 (2), 19-45. 

Brodén Gyberg, V. and Lövbrand, E. (2022) Catalyzing industrial decarbonization: the promissory legitimacy of fossil-free Sweden, Oxford Open Climate Change, 2022, 2(1): kgac004, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgac004

Jernnäs, M. and Lövbrand, E. (2022) Accelerating Climate Action: The Politics of Nonstate Actor Engagement in the Paris Regime, Global Environmental Politics 22(3): 38-58. doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00660

Stoddard I, Anderson K, Capstick S, Carton W, Depledge J, Facer K, Gough C, Hache F, Hoolohan C, Hultman M, Hällström N, Kartha S, Klinsky S, Kuchler M, Lövbrand E, Nasiritousi N, Newell P, Peters GP, Sokona Y, Stirling A, Stilwell M, Spash C, Williams M (2021) Three decades of climate mitigation: why haven't we bent the global emissions curve? Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Volume 46.  doi: 10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-011104

Potter, E., Miller, F., Lövbrand, E., Houston, D.,  McLean, J., O’Gorman, E., Evers, C. (2020) A manifesto for shadow places: Re-imagining and co-producing connections for justice in an era of climate change, Environment and Planning E, 0(0):1-21.

Lövbrand, E., Mobjörk, M. and Söder, R. (2020) The Anthropocene and the Geo-Political Imagination: Re-thinking Earth as Political Space, Earth System Governance 4, Doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2020.100051

Lövbrand, E and Stripple, J (2020) Carbon, in An A to Z of Shadow Places Concepts,  https://www.shadowplaces.net/concepts

Blum, M. and Lövbrand, E. (2019) The Return of Carbon Offsetting: The Discursive Legitimation of New Market Arrangements in the Paris Climate Regime, Earth System Governance. Doi.org/10.1016/j.esg.2019.10002

Kaijser, A. and Lövbrand, E. (2019) Run for Your Life: Embodied Environmental Story-telling and Citizenship on the Road to Paris, Frontiers in Communication 4, article 32. Doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2019.00032

Livingston, J., Lövbrand, E. and Alkan-Olsson, J. (2018) From climates multiple to climate singular: Maintaining policy relevance in the IPCC synthesis report, Environmental Science and Policy 90: 83-90.  

Bäckstrand, K., Kuyper, J., Linnér, B-O & Lövbrand, E. (2017),  Non-state actors in global climate governance: from Copenhagen to Paris and beyond, Environmental Politics 26 (4), pp. 561–579.

Lövbrand, E., Hjerpe, M. & Linnér, Björn-Ola (2017), Making climate change global. How UN climate summitry comes to matter in a complex climate regime, Environmental Politics 26 (4), pp. 580-599. 

Bäckstrand, K. and Lövbrand, E (2016) The road to Paris. Competing climate governance discourses in the post-Copenhagen era, Environmental Policy and Planning, online first. DOI:10.1080/1523908X.2016.1150777

Kuchler, M. and Lövbrand, E. (2015) Simulative governance: on the collaborative  language of civil society participation in the CDM’s stakeholder framework, Environmental Politics 25(3): 434-453

Lövbrand, E., Beck, S., Chilvers, J., Forsyth, T., Hedrén, J., Hulme, M., Lidskog, R., and Vasileiadou, E. (2015) Who speaks for the future of Earth? How critical social science can extend the conversation on the Anthropocene, Global Environmental Change 32: 211-218.

Beck, S., Borie, M., Esguerra, A., Chilvers, J., Heubach, K., Hulme, M., Lidskog, R.,  Lövbrand, E., Marquard, E., Miller, C., Nadim, T., Nesshöver, C., Settele, J., Turnhout, E., Vasileiadou, E., Görg, C. (2014) Towards a reflexive turn in governing global environmental expertise – the cases of the IPCC and IPBES, GAIA 23(2): 80-8.

Uhrqvist, O. and Lövbrand, E. (2014). Rendering global change problematic. The constitutive effects of Earth System research in the IGBP and IHDP, Environmental Politics 23(2): 339–356.

Lövbrand, E and Linnér, B-O. (2013) Wither carbon accounting? On the political effects of 400 ppm, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, Online commentary, July 2013.  

Gupta, A, Lövbrand, E, Turnhout, E. and Vijge, M (2012). In the pursuit of carbon accountability. The politics of REDD+ monitoring, reporting and verification, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 4:726–731

Lövbrand, E. and Stripple, J. (2012). Disrupting the public-private distinction: excavating the government of carbon markets post Copenhagen. Environment and Planning C 30: 658-674. 

Hulme, M., Mahony, M., Beck, S., Görg, C., Hansjürgens, B., Hauk, J., Nesshöver, C., Paulsch, A., Vandewalle, M., Wittmer, H., Böschen, S., Bridgewater, P., Chimère, M., Fabre, P., Figeroua, A., Lueng Heong, K., Korn, H., Leemans, R., Lövbrand, E., Norowi Hamid, M., Monfreda, C., Pielke Jr., R. Settele, J., Winter, M., Vandorot, A. B.M., Van Den Hove, S., Van Der Sluijs, J. (2011). Science-Policy Interface: Beyond Assessments, Science 333: 697-698.

Lövbrand, E. (2011). Co-producing European climate science and policy. A cautionary note on the making of useful knowledge.  Science and Public Policy, 38(3), pp. 225-236.

Lövbrand, E. and Stripple, J. (2011). Making climate change governable: accounting for carbon as sinks, credits and personal budgets. Critical Policy Studies, 5(2), pp. 187-200. 

Lövbrand, E., Pielke, R. Jr. and Beck, S. (2011). A democracy paradox in studies of science and technology, Science, Technology and Human Values, 36(4): 474-496. 

Lövbrand, E. (2009) Revisiting the politics of expertise in light of the Kyoto negotiations on land use change and forestry. Forest Policy and Economics 11: 404-412.

Lövbrand, E., Stripple, J. and Wiman, B. (2009). Earth system governmentality. Reflections on science in the Anthropocene, Global Environmental Change 19: 7-13. 

Lövbrand, E., Nordqvist, J. and Rindefjäll, T. (2009) Closing the legitimacy gap in global environmental governance? Examples from the emerging CDM market, Global Environmental Politics 9(2): 74-100.

Lövbrand, E. (2007). Pure science or policy involvement? Ambiguous boundary work for Swedish carbon cycle research, Environmental Science and Policy, 10(1):39-47

Lövbrand, E and Stripple, J (2006). The climate as political space. On the territorialization of the global carbon cycle, Review of International Studies 32: 217-235.

Bäckstrand, K. and Lövbrand, E. (2006). Planting trees to mitigate climate change. Contested discourses of ecological modernization, green governmentality and civic environmentalism, Global Environmental Politics 6(1): 50-75.

Lövbrand, E., Esguerra, A., & Knappe, H. (2026). Climate justice activism and the populist challenge to global environmentalism, in Linnér, B-O., Bennich, T., & Carlsen, H. (Eds.), Handbook on the Geopolitics of Sustainability. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.  

Lövbrand, E. and Brodén Gyberg, V. (2023) In the Shadow of an Oil Refinery: Narrating Just Transitions in the City of Lysekil, in Bäckstrand, K., Marquardt, J., Nasiritousi, N., and Widerberg, O. (eds), Governing toward a green decarbonized state: The interplay between state and non-state actors in Sweden, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Lövbrand, E. and Mobjörk, M. (eds.) (2021) Anthropocene (In)Securities: Reflections on Collective Survival 50 Years after the Stockholm Conference, SIPRI Research Report 26, Oxford, Oxford University Press.  

Lövbrand, E., Mobjörk, M. and Söder, R. (2021) One earth, multiple worlds: Securing collective survival on a human-dominated planet, in Lövbrand, E et al. (eds.) Anthropocene (In)Securities: Reflections on Collective Survival 50 Years after the Stockholm Conference, SIPRI Research Report 26, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 5-14.

Biermann, F. and Lövbrand, E. (eds.) (2019) Anthropocene Encounters: New Directions in Green Political Thinking, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Lövbrand, E. (2019) Beyond Limits: Making Policy in a Climate Changed World, in Meadowcroft, J. et al. (eds). What Next for Sustainable Development? Our Common Future at Thirty, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Bäckstrand, K. and Lövbrand, E. (eds.) (2015). Research Handbook on Climate Governance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Press.

Lövbrand, E. and Stripple, J. (2015) Foucault and critical policy studies, in Fischer F., Torgerson D., Orsini M. and Durnova A. (eds.), Handbook on Critical Policy Studies, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar Press. 

Lövbrand, E. and Linnér Björn-Ola (2015) Governing beyond or with the state. State conceptions in studies of non-state climate action. In Kronsell, A. and Bäckstrand, K. (eds.) Rethinking the state: environmental governance towards climate and sustainability transitions, London, Routledge.

Lövbrand, E. (2014) Knowledge and the environment. In Betsill, M., Hochstetler, K.and Stevis, D. (eds.), Palgrave Advances in International Environmental Politics, Palgrave McMillan. 

Lövbrand, E. and Stripple, J. (2013) Bringing governmentality to the study of global climate governance. In Stripple, J. and Bulkeley, H. (eds.), Governing the Climate: New Approaches to Rationality, Power and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lövbrand, E and Stripple, J. (2014) Governmentality. In Death, C. (ed.) Critical Environmental Politics. Abingdon: Routledge Intervention Series.

Bäckstrand, K., Khan, J., Kronsell, A. and Lövbrand, E. (eds.) (2010) Environmental Politics and Deliberative Democracy: Examining the Promise of New Modes of Environmental Governance. Cheltenhamn, Edward Elgar Press.

Lövbrand, E. and Khan, J. (2010) The deliberative turn in green political theory. In Bäckstrand, K., Khan, J., Kronsell, A. & Lövbrand, E. (eds.), Environmental Politics and Deliberative Democracy: Examining the Promise of New Modes of Environmental Governance. Edward Elgar Press. 

Lövbrand, E. and Stripple, J. (2010) Carbon market governance beyond the public-private divide. In Biermann, F, Pattberg, P, and Zelli, F (eds) Global Climate Governance Post 2012: Architectures, Agency and Adaptation. Cambridge University Press.

Bäckstrand, K. and Lövbrand, E. (2007). Climate governance beyond 2012. Competing discourses of green governmentality, ecological modernization and civic environmentalism. In: Pettenger, M. (ed.) The Social Construction of Climate Change. Ashgate Publishers