Interrogating the Post-Political: The Case of Radical Climate and Climate Justice Movements Bertie Thomas Russell University of Leeds Department of Geography Submitted in accordance with the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2012 ii iii The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his/her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that is is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. © 2012 The University of Leeds and Bertie Thomas Russell The right of Bertie Thomas Russell to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988 iv v In Memory of my Dad vi Acknowledgements It would be impossible to recognize all those that made possible the writing of this thesis. In the first instance, there is no shortage of individuals whose names I never knew, but whose words and actions inspired me. Then there are those whose names I once knew but have perhaps forgotten, those with whom - for some ephemeral moment - I have sat conspiring, laughing, or mutually consoling one another, only for us to go separate ways. Then there are those whose names I know all too well, those with whom I have spent years embroiled in meetings and reading groups, running through plans or down streets, propping up make-shift bars in scrappy convergence spaces, or scheming for some impossible way of doing things differently. Then there are those whom I have never heard of, most of whom I will never meet; those who are also hoping and conspiring towards other worlds. There are nonetheless some people who can or must be named. Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr. Paul Chatterton and Dr. Paul Waley, who entrusted me with a necessarily long leash to pursue ideas and events, often on little more than my intuition and trust, whilst at the same time reminding me that I actually had a thesis to write at the end of it. I must also thank all those individuals and organizations whose photos and images I have used in this thesis: Kristian Buus, Amelia Gregory, Magne Hagesæter, Kris Krüg, Olivier De Marcellus, Mike Russell, Neil White, 100 Months, Greenpeace, Indymedia and Plane Stupid. Then there are those consistently close friends and comrades whom, invariably, both distracted me and kept me going; Sam De Boise, Liz Collins, Mike Douglas, Alex Feldman, Tom Gillespie, Vicky Habermehl, Dan Hassan, Sophie Haydock, Andre Pusey, James Robertson, Leon Sealey-Huggins, Joe Shute and Gui & Katie Tran. You have all tolerated far too much of me complaining. The person who has suffered most from this whole process must undoubtedly be my closest friend and partner, Amy. She has fully experienced the emotional maelstrom of this thesis and has supported me throughout, both in my studies and in all the ‘real life’ stuff - good and bad. The next four years of dishwashing are on me, I promise. Finally, I wish to thank my parents, who instilled in equal measure both my compassion and my rage. Without them, I could not be who I am today. vii Abstract Between mid-2006 and late-2010 the UK experienced a parabola of spectacular protests relating to climate change, ranging from the occupation of airport taxiways through to the blockade of coal power stations. Mobilizing thousands of people, this ‘radical climate movement’ was distinguished from a popular concern with climate change by its general commitment to direct action, widely-held anti-capitalist and anti- authoritarian beliefs, and a stated focus of tackling the ‘root causes’ of climate change. Written from within this ‘radical climate movement’, this thesis is an investigation into the praxis of the movement, exploring the extent to which participants contributed to the emergence of a ‘radical’ knowledge of climate change, and thus assessing the appropriateness (and effectiveness) of the movement’s methodologies. Driven by an internal debate regarding the movement’s tendency to depart from its radical political roots, the theoretical core of this thesis draws upon the concept of the ‘post-political condition’, a condition of the liberal consciousness that forecloses the very possibility of a political praxis on the climate. It is contended that a specific post- political discourse of ‘dangerous climate change’ emerged in the late-1980s which, defined by an apocalyptic discourse that placed a ‘carbon fetishism’ at the core of its rationale, evacuated the space for political discourse in favour of a general humanitarian effort to forestall “the greatest danger we’ve ever faced”. It is suggested that despite the efforts of many to confront the problem, the UK’s ‘radical climate movement’ broadly failed to escape this liberal discourse. The research thus turns to the international mobilizations around the COP15 in 2009, concluding that the emergence of a discourse of ‘climate justice’ was a partial attempt to overcome this post-political discourse. From the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (CMPCC) in Bolivia, to the continued organization of the Climate Justice Action (CJA) network, it is suggested that ‘climate justice’ diverged according to two separate discourses - one around ‘climate debt’ and another around anti-capitalist critique. It is finally concluded that a true politicization necessitates celebrating the death of the environmental movement, instead placing our social- reproduction at the core of any claim to an ecological politics. viii Table of Contents Declaration ............................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................. vi Abstract .................................................................................................................... vii Photos and Figures .................................................................................................. xi List of Acronyms ...................................................................................................... xii 1. Introduction 1.0 Introduction ....................................................................................... 1 1.1 A politics of climate change? ............................................................. 3 1.2 Thesis themes ..................................................................................... 5 1.3 Thesis outline ..................................................................................... 6 1.4 A disclaimer on writing conventions ................................................. 9 2. Researching Power, Knowledge and Radical Movements 2.0 Introduction ....................................................................................... 13 2.1 Fore-thoughts on epistemology ......................................................... 15 2.2 Myself and the milieu ......................................................................... 19 2.3 From theorizing militant ethnography... ............................................ 23 2.4 ..to doing militant ethnography ......................................................... 28 2.5 Emergent aims ................................................................................... 32 2.6 A contingent ‘ethics of care’ .............................................................. 35 3. The Post-Political Condition 3.0 Introduction ....................................................................................... 41 3.1 Schmitt’s concept of the political ....................................................... 44 3.2 The paradox of liberal democracy ..................................................... 46 3.3 The emergence of the post-political ................................................... 52 3.4 The moral register and the foreclosure of the political ..................... 55 3.5 The foreclosure of radical-ecological politics ................................... 61 4. Towards a Genealogy of the Post-Political and Liberal Capitalism 4.0 Introduction ....................................................................................... 65 4.1 A liberal limit to sovereign power ..................................................... 67 4.2 Homo œconomicus and the birth of political economy ..................... 70 4.3 The neoliberal turn - “there is no such thing as society” ................. 74 ix 4.4 A Genealogy of Power(s) ................................................................... 77 4.5 Post-politics and the ‘inevitability’ of capital .................................... 80 5. The Liberal Mythology of ‘Dangerous Climate Change’ 5.0 Introduction ....................................................................................... 83 5.1 The emergence of the liberal problematic of ‘dangerous climate change’ ............................................................................................... 85 5.2 Carbon fetishism and the post-politics of ‘dangerous climate change’ .............................................................................................. 94 5.3 The individualization of ‘dangerous climate change’ ....................... 100 5.4 Conclusion ......................................................................................... 106 6. The Post-Political Condition and the UK’s ‘Radical’ Climate Movement(s) 6.0 Introduction