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Radical climate change politics in Copenhagen and beyond
Brand, Ulrich Bullard, Nicola Lander, Edgardo Mueller, Tadzio
Brand, Ulrich
Bullard, Nicola
Lander, Edgardo
Mueller, Tadzio
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Abstract
"There is something uncanny about the politics of climate change. An issue at the same time old and new; omnipresent, yet easily forgotten; threatening the destruction of billions of lives, yet somehow relegated to a relatively obscure corner of the global political system, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a treaty organisation far less powerful than, say, the World Trade Organization (WTO). But whence the relatively sudden prominence of the issue, after languishing in the environmentalist doldrums for nearly two decades – is it ‘really’ because of the climate crisis, or are there other interests, other structures at work? And what can ‘we’, the global movements, global civil society, whatever name we give to ourselves, what can we do about the issue? These questions might not be resolved here, but we feel that it is important to start asking them. Since public discussion of the issue began in earnest in the 1980s, climate change and its potential and real impacts have become more and more obvious. Not only the developments in scientific research, but also the activities of environmental movements,media, critical intellectuals, progressive state officials and alternative energy producers have focused social and political attention on the implications of the problem. With the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol, an international political mechanism to manage the issue was developed in the 1990s."(p.9)
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2009-10
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With permission of the license/copyright holder