Joana Setzer

Joana Setzer is an Assistant Professorial Research Fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her main areas of expertise are climate litigation and global environmental governance.

Since 2013 she has been involved, and since 2020 she leads the Grantham Research Institute’s Climate Change Laws of the World project – the most comprehensive global resource on climate policy, legislation and litigation.

Joana is currently serving as a Contributing Author for Working Group 3 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Sixth Assessment Review (IPCC AR6). She regularly advises a range of international, governments and non-governmental organisations. She is a frequent speaker at academic and non-academic events, and a regular source for media outlets.

Background

Joana was a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow (2016-2019). She holds a PhD (2014) and an MSc in Environment and Development from the LSE (2009), a Masters in Environmental Science from the University of Sao Paulo (2007), and an BA in Law from the Catholic University of Sao Paulo (2001). Prior to joining the LSE, she worked as an environmental lawyer in Brazil, and served as the external affairs coordinator of Regions4, a network that represents subnational governments at the international level in the field of sustainable development.

Research interests

• Climate litigation
• Subnational diplomacy
• Multilevel climate and environmental governance
• Climate change and environmental legislation

Book

• Climate Change Litigation in Brazil: Will Green Courts Become Greener?
  Book by Joana Setzer on 30 April, 2021

• Subnational Leaders and Diplomacy
  Book by Joana Setzer on 1 May, 2019

• Climate Litigation: New frontiers for environmental law in Brazil – Conclusion (in Portuguese)
  Book by Joana Setzer on 31 March, 2019

• National Governance The state’s role in steering polycentric action
  Book by Joana Setzer and Michal Nachmany on 30 April, 2018

• Trends in climate change legislation
  Book by Alina Averchenkova, Sam Fankhauser, Michal Nachmany, Samuela Bassi, Mook Bangalore, Alex Bowen, Abbie Clare, Caterina Gennaioli, Fergus Green, Sini Matikainen, Isabella Neuweg and Joana Setzer on 1 January, 2018