Professional Documents
Culture Documents
currents
Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation
Occasional Paper Series
Contours of
Climate Justice
Ideas for shaping new
climate and energy politics
no.6
October 2009 Beyond Diplomacy – Perspectives on Dag Hammarskjöld 5
critical currents no.6
October 2009
Edited by
Ulrich Brand Edgardo Lander
Nicola Bullard Tadzio Mueller
With contributions by
Kolya Abramsky Eduardo Gudynas
Alberto Acosta Mike Hodson
Walden Bello Enrique Leff
Achim Brunnengräber Simone Lovera
Ewa Charkiewicz Simon Marvin
Anne Laure Constantin Alexis Passadakis
Gopal Dayaneni Wolfgang Sachs
Enrique Leff
Degrowth, or deconstruction of the economy: Towards a sustainable world ..................101
Alberto Acosta
The rights of nature, new forms of citizenship and the Good Life
– Echoes of the Constitución de Montecristi in Ecuador ......................................... 108
Albert Schweitzer
More than 75 years ago, in a letter to Rut- he kept from the mid-1920s onwards. For
ger Moll (probably in 1933), Dag Ham- Hammarskjöld, nature amounted almost to a
marskjöld wrote about his emotions while sacred frontier. Some of the notes from 1951
spending the summer hiking in northern show with particular clarity his deep bonds
Sweden. For him, this experience evoked ‘a with the wilderness, which for him was the:
feeling of solidarity with nature’ as ‘almost
the most important thing’.1 Hammarskjöld …extrahuman in the experience of the
had a profound, intimate relationship with greatness of Nature. This does not allow
the world of the sea and even more so that itself to be reduced to an expression of
of the mountains.2 He had a deep-rooted our human reactions, nor can we share
and conscious personal interaction with na- in it by expressing them. Unless we each
ture, which was evidenced by, among other fi nd a way to chime in as one note in
things, his admiration for the work of Carl the organic whole, we shall only observe
von Linnaeus as well as his affinity for the ourselves observing the interplay of its
fiction of Joseph Conrad and his belief in thousand components in a harmony out-
the ethical philosophy of Albert Schweitzer, side our experience of it as harmony.4
to mention only the obvious instances. His
posthumously published childhood memo- Hammarskjöld’s photos, which he took with
ries of his upbringing on Uppsala’s Castle a passion during his explorations, pictured
Hill provide further striking insight into his mostly landscape and were a visual expression
almost spiritual relationship with the natural of this respect for nature. As he commented
environment and habitat.3 in an essay entitled ‘The camera has taught
me to see’, he was seeking to illustrate ‘the
Not the least testament of this relationship balance of strength and nervous sensitivity so
can be found in his entries in the notebook often displayed by nature’s own creations’.5
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 5
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 7
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 9
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 11
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Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 15
Ewa Charkiewicz
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 19
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 21
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 23
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 25
Achim Brunnengräber
The current fi nancial and economic crises
are generating pressures towards the regula-
tion of the global capitalist economy, but the
much-heralded strategies for reform remain
mere piecework and seem to have reached
their limits long before the crisis has run its
course. After all, their primary focus is on
the revitalisation of the banking and trade
sectors, not on global environmental issues.
The relapse suffered by Angela Merkel –
once hailed as the ‘climate chancellor’, now
considered once again a run-of-the-mill car
and industry chancellor – shows that during
a crisis, the environment has no lobby. To
be sure, environmental organisations, green Achim Brunnengräber is at the
(wings of ) parties, engaged scientists and Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science,
international environmental and develop- Free University, Berlin. His research
ment NGOs issue regular reminders about areas are environmental governance,
the United Nations Framework Convention energy policy, climate change policy and
on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the politics, vulnerability and adaptation.
Kyoto Protocol. But that, too, is symptom-
atic of the problem: the crisis has not led to
a critique of market-based instruments, but
rather to an ever more desperate attempt to
cling to them, in spite of all their weakness-
es, for beyond them there seems to be noth-
ing but political wilderness. This makes a
critique of the political economy of climate
change all the more important.1
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 27
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 29
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 31
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 33
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 35
Eduardo Gudynas
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 37
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 39
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 41
Walden Bello
2 Imhoff, pp.425-6.
1 new economics foundation, p.9. 3 Ibid.
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 43
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 45
Simone Lovera
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 47
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 49
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 51
Literature
Cotula, L., and J. Mayers (2009), Tenure in Lovera., S. (2006), ‘Reducing Deforestation,
REDD – Start-point or Afterthought?’. Natural It’s the Money We Love’, Forest Cover 20.
Resource Issues NO. 15. London: Interna- October.
tional Institute for Environment and Devel-
opment. Nepstad, D., S. Schwartzman, B. Bamberg-
er, M. Santilli, P. Schlesinger, P. Lefebvre,
Friends of the Earth (FoE) (2009), A Danger- A. Alencar, D. Ray, E. Prinz, and A. Rolla
ous Distraction, Why Offsetting in Failing the (2006), ‘Inhibition of Amazon Deforestation
Climate and People: The Evidence. and Fire by Parks and Indigenous Reserves’,
Conservation Biology, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp.65-
Global Forest Coalition (GFC) (2008), Life as 73.
Commerce: The Impact of Market-based Conser-
vation on Indigenous Peoples, Local Communi- Sasaki, N. and F. Putz (2009), ‘Critical Need
ties and Women. for New Definitions of “Forests” and “For-
est Degradation” in Global Climate Agree-
Karsenty, A., (2008), ‘The Architecture of ments’, Conservation Letters, Vol. xx, pp.1-7.
Proposed REDD Schemes after Bali: Facing
Critical Choices’, Département Environne-
ments et Societés, Montpellier.
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 53
Alexis Passadakis
Is green the new black? studied political sci-
ence and global politi-
Remember the days when ‘the ecology’ cal economy in Berlin
seemed to stand in stark contrast to ‘the and Brighton. In recent
economy’? When capital, labour and gov- years he has worked
ernments stood side by side to see off the with different NGOs
challenge articulated by ‘mad’ environmen- and is currently a mem-
talists; when to admit the reality and threat ber of Attac Germany’s coordinating council. He is
of ‘climate change’ would place you far be- active in the emerging climate justice movement
yond the realms of acceptable discourse; and and co-organised the first German climate action
when green parties were perceived as stand- camp in Hamburg in 2008. Alexis lives in Berlin.
ing to the left of Social Democracy?
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 55
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 57
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 59
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 61
12
Biomass burning
(CH4 + N2O)
38
Soil emissions
(CH4 + N2O)
32
Enteric fermentation
(CH4)
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 63
2 http://www.livestockemissions.net/ 3 http://www.agassessment.org/
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 65
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 67
Literature
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Bals, C., S. Harmeling, and M. Windfuhr
(2008), Climate Change, Food Security and Li-Ching, L. (2008), Sustainable Agricul-
the Right to Adequate Food. Stuttgart: Brot ture: Meeting Food Security Needs, Addressing
für die Welt, Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe, Climate Challenges. Penang: Third World
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Bellarby J., B. Foereid, A. Hastings, and Smith, P., D. Martino, Z. Cai, D. Gwary,
P. Smith (2008), Cool Farming: Climate H. Janzen, P. Kumar, B. McCarl, S. Ogle,
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Amsterdam: Greenpeace International. Sirotenko (2007), Agriculture in Climate
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over (2009), Identifying our Climate ‘Food-
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Warming Impacts of Food and Agriculture in the culture and Food Security in Africa, 2008.
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and Trade Policy. UN Food and Agriculture Organization
(2006), Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmen-
Ernsting, A., and R. Smolker (2009), Bio- tal Issues and Options.
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Copenhagen. ter, Agriculture and Climate Crises. Minneapolis:
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Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 69
Introduction
Cities are critical sites in our understanding Mike Hodson is
of both energy and climate change. They research fellow at the
are often simultaneously represented as be- SURF Centre in the
ing a significant part of the ‘cause’ of climate United Kingdom.
change, since urban areas and their inhab- His research interests
itants may be responsible for up to 75 per focus on city-regional
cent of global human energy consumption transitions to low-
and carbon emissions; as foremost among carbon economies,
the ‘victims’ of climate change, particularly the ways in which this
the vulnerable coastal megacities of the glo- may or may not happen and understandings of
bal South; and, as key sites of ‘innovative the lessons to be learned from such processes.
responses’, such as through the actions of
the representatives of large cities in the C40 Simon Marvin is
network.1 All cities face the critical chal- professor at and co-
lenge of how to ensure they can guarantee director of SURF. He is an
their long-term ecological and economic expert on the changing
survival in a context of human-made global relations between
ecological change – referred to as the An- neighbourhoods, cities,
thropocene period (see below) – that implies regions and infrastructure
greater uncertainty about climate change networks in a period
and the availability of critical resources such of resource constraint,
as food, water and energy (see Dalby 2007). institutional restructuring and climate change.
The question of what kind of city we want Cities are connected through intensive air-
cannot be divorced from that of what kind line networks, logistical transportation sys-
of social ties, relationship to nature, life- tems, enormous energy and water grids as
styles, technologies and aesthetic values well as communication and ICT systems
we desire. The right to the city is far more interconnecting markets, production and
than the individual liberty to access urban consumption systems, people, organisations
resources: it is a right to change ourselves and governments. Yet in the contempo-
by changing the city. It is, moreover, a rary period there is a recognition that these
common rather than an individual right industrialised systems – not all located in
since this transformation inevitably de- cities, but certainly largely controlled by
pends upon the exercise of a collective organisations located in large global cities –
power to reshape the processes of urbani- have ecological effects that are beginning to
zation. The freedom to make and remake change the global ecological context within
our cities and ourselves is, I want to argue,
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 71
Cover of Geological Society of America. 3 As well as the differences between cities of the North
and South, there are of course also significant in-
ternal differences within all cities in terms of levels
of social access to critical resources such as energy,
2 See http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=1701 water and a clean local environment.
neo-liber al responses f e at u r e ‘a lt e r n at i v e ’ r e s p o n s e s
Eco-urbanism – eco-cities,
Type of build Retrofitting – existing and new
regions, blocks and towns
Product of bounded
Consequences Mutual interdependencies
security and by-pass
Dongtan (Shanghai),
Exemplars Transitions Towns, Relocalisation
Masdar (UAE)
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 73
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 75
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 77
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to our colleagues in SURF,
Tim May and Beth Perry, for their support
in developing the ideas in this paper and to
Vivian Liang for excellent help in securing
the permissions for the figures and photo-
graphs illustrating this contribution. Our
thanks also to the editors of the report for
providing constructive and helpful feedback
on the paper.
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 79
Gopal Dayaneni
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 81
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 83
Wolfgang Sachs
Dangerous to whom?
The 1992 United Nations Framework Con-
vention on Climate Change calls for the sta-
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 85
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 87
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 89
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 91
Kolya Abramsky
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 93
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 95
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 97
Finally, it is worth mentioning the im- At the more radical end of ecological cri-
portance of patents and the ownership of tique, there are many discussions about the
knowledge and technologies. Despite initial need for profound change in production
murmurings about ‘open source’ technol- relations. However, the organisations and
ogy and non-commercial technology trans- collectives with such perspectives frequent-
fers arising in the renewable energy sector, ly lack the social base necessary for such a
inspired by the open-source computer soft- process of change to happen. In particular,
ware movement, such a process is still virtu- they have little capacity (and sometimes
ally non-existent. even will) to contribute to serious debate
within trade unions and other worker or-
On a more general level, it is worth look- ganisations within these sectors, so their
ing at contemporary struggles over land and more sophisticated critique amounts to just
energy-intensive industries. Land is one of that: a critique without an accompanying
the most basic elements of subsistence for process of change. On the other hand, the
humans throughout the world, and is also dominant ‘green’ discourse, though often
essential for capital accumulation. It is both well-connected to trade union organisations
a key means of production and of the repro- working on sustainability from a worker
duction of human life. Collective owner- perspective, hardly talks about ownership of
ship and decommodification of land are still key means of production. Most campaigns
at the heart of many, if not most, rural and from this broad group of organisations push
indigenous struggles throughout the world for change within the existing framework of
today. It is in these struggles that the clearest social relations. Finally, the dominant trade
political discourse surrounding control of union discourse in these sectors favours tri-
the means of production can be found. partite bargaining, ‘decent work’ and social
peace, based on regulating production for
However, the outlook for struggles over private profit in an expanding world mar-
ownership and decommodification in en- ket.
ergy-intensive industries such as cars, avia-
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 99
Enrique Leff
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 101
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 103
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 105
Carson, R. (1962), Silent Spring. New York: Meadows, D.H., D.L. Meadows and J.
Fawcett. Randers (1972), The Limits to Growth. New
York: Universe Books.
Georgescu-Roegen, N. (1971), The Entropy
Law and the Economic Process. Cambridge Park, J., M. Finger, and K. Conca (2008),
MA: Harvard University Press. ‘The Death of Rio Environmentalism’, in
Conca, K., M. Finger, and J. Park (eds), The
Leff, E. (1995), Green Production: Towards an Crisis of Global Environmental Governance: To-
Environmental Rationality. New York: Guil- wards a New Political Economy of Sustainability.
ford Publications. London: Routledge.
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 107
Alberto Acosta
The task is to overcome the range of norms The consolidation of new constitutional
that were explicitly or implicitly agreed by norms into laws and a renewal of politics
the big economic agents that acted indepen- consistent with the proposed changes is a
dently of public powers in their relations task that calls on all in the city and the coun-
with each other or the state. Ultimately, try to continue on the path of mobilisation.
these norms, stemming from private inter- The emptying-out of the historical content
ests, including transnational agents (IMF, of the constitution must be prevented, for
WTO, Free Trade Agreements, to name just example, by way of new laws and institu-
a few sources of this transnational law), have tions.
determined political relations with the state.
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 109
Current governments – even in Ecuador – We do not wait for the world to change
remain tied to neo-developmentalist per- so that we can make advances in the field
spectives and practices that necessarily con- of migration: we act to change the world.
tradict the spirit of the Good Life. This is These proposals concerning human mobil-
why it is imperative not only to overcome ity appear in the wider context of furthering
neo-liberal practices, but also to strive to- the principle of universal citizenship, free-
wards a harmonious relationship between dom of movement for all inhabitants of the
society and nature, that is, the Good Life. planet and the progressive elimination of the
Contours of Climate Justice. Ideas for shaping new climate and energy politics 111
Critical Currents is an
Occasional Paper Series
published by the
Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.
It is also available online
at www.dhf.uu.se.