Who governs the climate? Agency, knowledge and the limits of democracy (original) (raw)

Knowledge Pluralism [and Climate Governance]

In this chapter I reflect on the aspiration for climate governance from the perspective of knowledge and its relationship with different understandings of agency and democracy. I first offer a short historical perspective on the changing relationship between knowledge and culture in the context of enduring human attempts to bring order to the disorderliness of climate. I next consider the implications for climate governance of the dominant contemporary understanding of climate, namely as a physically interconnected global system. This form of knowledge elevates atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and global surface air temperature as primary objects of political control and claims to render climate governable. I then reflect on forms of democracy that are either assumed or erased through these dominant processes of knowledge-making, arguing that institutionalised programmes of global change research pay insufficient attention to the difficulties of resolving enduring differences in citizen beliefs and values. Finally, I consider alternative frames of thought and action which do not place knowledge, least of all integrated knowledge, as the driver of climate governance and which suggest that global climate might not be a governable object.

The Rise and Fall of the Global Climate Polity

Johannes Stripple & Harriet Bulkeley (eds), Governing the Climate. New Approaches to Rationality, Power and Politic , 2013

Whereas most of the chapters go ‘down’ to the micro-practices of climate governance, this chapter aims to take a step ‘up’ to elucidate a clearer picture or model of what a global climate polity is in terms of its totality: how are the elements of a global polity structured and what makes a polity a polity? In this chapter, first the question of whether analysis of localized governmental techniques needs an accompanying consideration of a bigger picture or context is considered. Next the global climate polity is theorised beyond the models of hierarchy and anarchy using a generic theory of what constitutes a polity via an elaboration of Foucault’s ideas about how changing objects of governance become central to political entities. The third part looks back briefly asking when a global climate polity thus conceived could be said to have evolved. The final section peers forwards to consider differing visions of the demise of the global climate polity as we know it: will it be superseded by a more encompassing ‘Earth System polity’ centered on governing not only the climate but also other interrelated geophysical systems? Or could it splinter as it is recognized that the climate is too complex and feral to be a governable object?

Climate change, governance and knowledge

In the 1998 Jerry Bruckheimer blockbuster movie Armageddon humanity is faced with the most serious threat: an asteroid the size of Texas is on a collision course with the earth. The effects of such a collision would be nothing short of disastrous: the end of the world as we know it. In this situation people do the obvious: they turn to a hero (naturally: Bruce Willis) who eventually saves the planet. If one believes in the IPCC reports and listens to the speakers at the numerous climate summits in the past two decades humanity is facing an equally serious crisis: the dangers and risks of anthropogenic climate change. 1 Unlike the impact of an asteroid, the effects of climate change are not immediately catastrophic. Likewise, it is hard to attribute a particular disaster (say an extreme weather occurrence such as flood or a drought) to climate change. Nevertheless, anthropogenic climate change brings about extraordinary dangers. Another deviation from the Hollywood script is the notable (some might say deplorable) absence of a hero. Decisive policy action is still lacking and progress in international climate negotiations is slow, fragile and, sometimes , thwarted by short-term national interest. Discussions about the governance of climate change in the coming decades increasingly appeal to the strong probability of exceptional dangers that modern societies are bound to face in the not too distant future, unless drastic and immediate action is taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions around the world.