Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top

2023 | Book

The Climatization of Global Politics: Introduction to the Special Issue Read chapter Read first chapter

The Climatization of Global Politics

Editors: Stefan Aykut, Lucile Maertens

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Login to get access
insite
SEARCH

About this book

This volume examines the process through which climate change is transforming global governance, as both an increasingly central issue on the international stage and an increasingly structured policy domain with its specific modes of governing, networks of actors, discourses, and knowledge practices. Collectively, the contributions aim to assess how and why climate change is becoming a dominant frame in international politics. In doing so, they also contribute to understanding the dynamics and drivers of climatization.

As global warming progresses and efforts to mitigate and adapt intensify, living under a changing climate—or in a ‘new climate regime’ (Latour 2015)—increasingly appears as a central feature of ‘our’ new, and highly unequal, human condition in the Anthropocene. In other words, we firmly believe that climatization is here to stay. It is thus crucial to better understand this process, recognizing its problems and ambiguities, but also examining its transformative potential and identifying the conditions under which such potentials can be harnessed with a view to building a more effective and equitable climate politics. We think that the chapters in this book contribute to this endeavour.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
The Climatization of Global Politics: Introduction to the Special Issue
Abstract
Climate change now constitutes a major issue in world politics, intersecting with and shaping many other political domains, and wider patterns of social and economic life. Global climate governance is also no longer restricted to multilateral negotiations under the UN Climate Convention: it increasingly extends beyond the international climate regime to climatize other areas of global politics. This concept of climatization points to a powerful but uneven process of extension, translation, and social coordination, as climate change becomes the frame of reference through which other policy issues and forms of global activism are mediated and hierarchized. This special issue brings together contributions on both theoretical aspects and empirical cases of the climatization process. The introduction sets out a conceptual framework to systematize these observations and guide further research. First, we identify the preconditions for, and driving forces behind, climatization. We then sketch the contours of an emergent ‘climate logic’ that reshapes affected domains, and examine the wider implications of climatization for global politics. Beyond the climate case, we hope this will provide new ways to observe and understand contemporary transformations of global society and global governance.
Stefan C. Aykut, Lucile Maertens
‘Incantatory’ Governance: Global Climate Politics’ Performative Turn and its Wider Significance for Global Politics
Abstract
The 2015 Paris agreement represents a deep-rooted change in global climate governance. While existing scholarly assessments highlight central institutional features of the Paris shift, they tend to overlook its symbolic and discursive dimensions. Our analysis shows that the Paris architecture combines two core elements: an iterative pledge and review process to stimulate global climate action, and a ‘performative’ narrative aimed at aligning actors’ expectations on the prospect of a low-carbon future. We therefore suggest calling it an incantatory system of governance. We then examine the origins of the new approach and find that the rise of ‘soft law’ approaches and communicative techniques in global climate governance are both indicative of a broader process: the entry of management culture in international organisations. Against this backdrop, we examine the prospects, limitations and caveats of the new approach and discuss its wider implications for global politics.
Stefan C. Aykut, Edouard Morena, Jean Foyer
The Climate Brokers: Philanthropy and the Shaping of a ‘US‑Compatible’ International Climate Regime
Abstract
Philanthropic foundations are a mainstay of the international climate debate, and yet they are surprisingly absent from the mainstream academic literature. This article attempts to fill this gap by exploring how philanthropic foundations, through their grantmaking, field-building and convening efforts, sought to shape and orientate the international climate regime. In particular, we show how foundations have historically worked to incorporate US positions into the international climate process. While the foundations and strategies have changed over time, foundations have unfailingly worked to bridge the divide between the US and the international climate policy field.
Edouard Morena
Reversing Climatisation: Transnational Grassroots Networks and Territorial Security Discourse in a Fragmented Global Climate Governance
Abstract
Created in 2010 during the international climate conference in Cancún, Mexico, the Mesoamerican alliance of peoples and forests (AMPB) lobbies for the recognition of territorial rights, which it frames as a fundamental safeguard in the global fight against climate change. On the one hand, it seeks to participate in global climate arenas, so as to capture the wide political and financial opportunities this context offers. On the other hand, it contests the “over-climatisation” of international debates, fearing that this would side-line the active historical role of local and indigenous communities in forest conservation and carbon storage. The paper examines the strategies mobilised by transnational grassroots networks ahead, during and beyond COP21 considered as a critical moment in global climate governance. One of the main results relates to the existence of a reversed climatisation process after the failed attempts to position territorial security issues in climate arenas.
Emilie Dupuits
Alternative Globalities? Climatization Processes and the Climate Movement Beyond COPs
Abstract
To provide a global answer to a global problem, the climate change movement (CCM) has long organized itself around international organizations and summits. However, waning trust in a multilateral answer to climate change has motivated many in the CCM to abandon their traditional focus on UN climate summits (COPs) and to rely increasingly on decentralized actions and organizing. This fundamental transformation of the CCM has remained understudied. An important emerging question is what role global aspirations still play and how a ‘global’ CCM can be organized independent of the ‘globality’ provided by COPs. This article draws on interviews, observations and document analyses around and after the COP21 climate summit (Paris 2015) to offer an exploratory analysis of some of the main goals and efforts to construct alternative ‘globalities’. The findings depict both strengths and limitations of these strategies, which inform suggestions for future research.
Joost de Moor
Preparing the French Military to a Warming World: Climatization Through Riskification
Abstract
This article studies the process of climatization of the French military initiated with the 21st Conference of the Parties in 2015 through an analysis of the discourses produced by military actors on climate change. I will argue that there are two ways in which the climatization of the military discourse operates. First, it leads to a reframing of existing security narratives such as migrations or armed conflicts through a climatic lens, which creates a sense of urgency and intensity. Second, the climatization of the military discourse is mediated by a riskification of climate change, through the adoption of a risk-based approach to prevent its security implications. It creates a sense of uncertainty and leads to the climatization of a growing number of security issues such as terrorism or illegal fisheries. Both processes contribute to legitimize military solutions in global climate governance and expand the scope of intervention of the armed forces.
Adrien Estève
‘Climatizing’ Military Strategy? A Case Study of the Indian Armed Forces
Abstract
Climate change is increasingly shaping security narratives, including military strategy. While considering climate change a security issue, the military’s role in this discourse and praxis becomes critical as a security actor. However, the interrelationships between climate change, security and the military are conceived and approached by different states diversely. Within different states, this triangular relationship is guided by processes with varied practical/policy implications. While ‘securitization’ has generally been used to explain climate security, other processes such as ‘climatization’ have assumed significance, wherein security practices are climatized. The Indian military too has been engaging with security implications of climate change, but by using approaches distinct from Western states, which have been the usual focus in such analyses. In this paper, the framework of climatization is used to analyse the triangular relationship, using the case study of the Indian military—by categorizing climatizing moves as symbolic, strategic, precautionary and transformative.
Dhanasree Jayaram
Climatizing the UN Security Council
Abstract
Since 2007, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has debated the security implications of climate change on several occasions. This article addresses these debates by exploring two interrelated questions: What drives the continuous efforts to place climate change on the UNSC’s agenda and to what extent do the UNSC’s debates illustrate an ongoing process of climatization? To answer these, the article draws on the concept of climatization, which captures the process through which domains of international politics are framed through a climate lens and transformed as a result of this translation. It suggests that climate change has become a dominant framing and an inescapable topic of international relations and that the UNSC debates follow a logic of expansion of climate politics by securing a steady climate agenda, attributing responsibility to the Council in the climate crisis, involving climate actors and advocating for climate-oriented policies to maintain international security.
Lucile Maertens
Metadata
Title
The Climatization of Global Politics
Editors
Stefan Aykut
Lucile Maertens
Copyright Year
2023
Electronic ISBN
978-3-031-17895-5
Print ISBN
978-3-031-17894-8
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17895-5