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Editorial: Is There a New Climate Politics?

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Politics and Governance (ISSN: 2183–2463) 2021, Volume 9, Issue 2, Pages 1–7 DOI: 10.17645/pag.v9i2.4341 Editorial Editorial: Is There a New Climate Politics? Anna R. Davies 1,*, Vanesa Castán Broto 2 and Stephan Hügel 1 1 Department of Geography, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland; E-Mails: [email protected] (A.R.D.), [email protected] (S.H.) 2 Urban Institute, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S1 4DP, UK; E-Mail: [email protected] * Corresponding author Submitted: 2 April 2021 | Published: 28 April 2021 Abstract Addressing climate change globally requires significant transformations of production and consumption systems. The lan- guage around climate action has shifted tangibly over the last five years to reflect this. Indeed, thousands of local govern- ments, national governments, universities and scientists have declared a climate emergency. Some commentators argue that the emergency framing conveys a new and more appropriate level of urgency needed to respond to climate challenges; to create a social tipping point in the fight against climate change. Others are concerned to move on from such emergency rhetoric to urgent action. Beyond emergency declarations, new spaces of, and places for, engagement with climate change are emerging. The public square, the exhibition hall, the law courts, and the investors’ forum are just some of the arenas where climate change politics are now being negotiated. Emergent governing mechanisms are being utilised, from citi- zens’ assemblies to ecocide lawsuits. New social movements from Extinction Rebellion to Fridays For Future demonstrate heightened concern and willingness to undertake civil disobedience and protest against climate inaction. Yet questions remain which are addressed in this thematic issue: Are these discourses and spaces of engagement manifestations of a radical new climate politics? And if these are new climate politics, do they mark a shift of gear in current discourses with the potential to effect transformative climate action and support a just transition to a decarbonised world? Keywords climate assemblies; climate change; climate emergency; climate politics; Green New Deal; just transition; youth movements Issue This editorial is part of the issue “Is There a New Climate Politics? Emergency, Engagement and Justice” edited by Anna R. Davies (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland), Stephan Hügel (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland) and Vanesa Castán Broto (University of Sheffield, UK). © 2021 by the authors; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This editorial is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu- tion 4.0 International License (CC BY). 1. Introduction omy. However, despite the global attention to climate change, we seem to be losing adaptation and mitigation Climate politics may be entering a new era. In 2020, opportunities, especially in lower-income countries. the European Commission fleshed out the European The Covid-19 outbreak in 2020 has impacted all Green Deal that, while still attempting to square the economies, but its bearing on the environment is at best circle of green growth, represented a change of gear ambiguous (International Energy Agency, 2020; Le Quéré in climate policy—a mechanism to mainstream climate et al., 2020). The Covid-19 outbreak has also compro- change in multiple spheres of policymaking. At the time mised ongoing efforts to reduce poverty and inequal- of writing, the newly elected US president Joe Biden ity (World Bank, 2020), and it has generated a need is signing the country back into the terms of the Paris for stimulus packages of which sizeable portions will Agreement. China is pushing ahead with an industrial likely go to infrastructure, to facilitate digital connectivity, strategy that puts renewables at the forefront of its econ- health care, pandemic-proofing of public services, and Politics and Governance, 2021, Volume 9, Issue 2, Pages 1–7 1 mobility (Abadie, 2020). Will these investments change (‘climate emergency,’ ‘Green New Deal,’ ‘just transitions’) the world’s trajectory towards a low carbon, climate- reflect new ways of thinking or are simply a continu- resilient future? ation of ‘old discourses’ of climate politics repackaged Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, a confluence of in a new context. Samper, Schockling, and Islar (2021), emergency declarations, novel engagement activities for example, explore this question in the context of the and social movements were generating momentum Green New Deal (USA) and Green Deal in the European for advancing courageous visions of future, low-carbon Union. In their article, the Green (New) Deal emerges development. The climate actions discussed in this as a new set of discourses of green development that thematic issue explore whether the changes in cli- are seen as potentially revolutionizing current climate mate change rhetoric and diversification of action sites, responses both in Europe and North America. The New spaces, and mechanisms that have emerged over the Deal evokes the public works, social policy and finan- past decade mark a radical shift of direction in the chal- cial reforms that, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt lenge of reducing carbon emissions and ensuring the live- changed the American landscape between 1933 and ability of the world for future generations. 1939. The moniker, however, stands uneasily with the Questions have roundly focused on how to respond diverse set of other narratives that Samper and col- and who will suffer the most (Mann, 2021). Climate leagues review, from programmes for green growth and change affects human health and wellbeing—with infrastructure development to those that represent a increasing evidence of mental health problems like fundamental criticism of current forms of organisation. solastalgia directly linked to climate change (Albrecht The European Green Deal is perhaps the most advanced et al., 2007; Pihl et al., 2021). While the youth climate programme which affects every sector of the economy, movement is increasing awareness of climate change from infrastructure development, to labour policy and in the public consciousness and re-centering climate the circular economy. However, despite the step-change debates around intergenerational ethics and justice, the in language and explicitly allocated funds for action, landscape of climate action seems plagued by unin- Samper and colleagues find it lacking, reproducing previ- tended impacts, as empirical evidence emerges of green- ous discourses and curtailing spaces for political debate. ing projects’ negative impacts, for example, causing peo- Adopting a new ‘green’ discourse, then, does not ple’s displacement (UN-Habitat, 2020). A just transition alone indicate a radical new approach to climate action. requires something other than incremental improve- This is a refrain reiterated by Ruiz-Campillo, Castán Broto, ments on infrastructure and services: It requires a cul- and Westman (2021) in their examination of the declara- tural shift that helps to reimagine human life within the tions of a climate emergency by 300 local governments in world’s confines. Such a cultural shift, however, requires 24 countries. They argue that such declarations respond political grounding. to growing pressure from social movements in interna- This thematic issue enquires as to whether this ‘new tional politics and signify a growing recognition of the politics’ of climate change signifies the continuation of sub-national government’s role in climate governance business as usual or heralds a radical change in lan- (Ruiz-Campillo et al., 2021). However, they also note that guage, approach, and participation. If such a change is framing climate change as an emergency does not, in and detectable, then there is a question of whether such of itself, make decisions about which measures to adopt change will lead towards a positive wave of environmen- any easier. Nor does it necessarily impact the effective- tal action or towards the creation of new inequalities. ness of those measures over time. The articles in this thematic issue explore various ter- Another institutional context—the university— rains of contemporary climate politics, interrogating the provides additional opportunities for the emergence of extent to which they are reflective of a new climate pol- new discourses and O’Neill and Sinden (2021) examine itics marking a radical step change from the climate pol- climate emergency declarations made in this context itics as usual which have failed to move global emis- in the UK. Universities potentially present progressive sions in the right direction since 1990. Despite their organisations to support the implementation of low car- diversity, both geographically and substantively, the arti- bon futures; however, the research conducted by O’Neill cles identify common dimensions: the significance of and Sinden (2021) cautions against assuming that such new discourses of climate action, the creation of new declarations are solely driven by desires to support a places and spaces for engagement, and the expansion radical uptick in climate action. Other concerns around of climate agents with specific attention to previously market differentiation, sustainability capital, and compe- marginalised voices. tition for students also play a part in universities declar- ing a climate emergency. 2. Dimensions of a New Climate Politics While the declarations constitute performative, posi- tioning exercises providing symbolic recognition of the 2.1. The Significance of Discourses urgency of the
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