Chairholder
Mark Purdon is a professor at the École des sciences de la gestion at the Université du Québec à Montréal (ESG UQAM). He is an expert in the emerging field of comparative environmental politics, which combines elements of comparative politics, comparative public policy and international relations. He is particularly interested in the relationship between climate change policy and political economy, with extensive research experience in both the developing and developed worlds. His objective is to build a bottom-up understanding of global climate change politics, policy and governance through rich, technical and contextualized comparative research as well as by rethinking theories of international relations, public policy and governance to better accommodate domestic politics. Other elements of Mark’s research include the international politics of climate finance, with a particular interest in the nascent North America carbon market established between Quebec and California. Mark has also actively participated in nearly every Conference of the Parties (COP) of the UNFCCC since 2005.
Mark earned a PhD in political science at the University of Toronto in 2013 and completed a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship at the London School of Economics in 2014. After a research position at the Université de Montréal, he joined the Département de stratégie, responsabilité sociale et environnementale at ESG UQÀM in 2018. He is also a research associate with the Environment for Development (EfD) Initiative, a research network led by the University of Gothenberg with centers in developing countries around the world. He was also co-founder and executive director of the Institut québécois du carbone (IQCarbone) which sought to advance climate policy research in Quebec and beyond.