1,720,984 research outputs found
My space:Governing individuals' carbon emissions
No full textIn recent years, there has been a veritable explosion of projects designed to enable individuals to ‘do their bit’ in the struggle to limit climate change. Previously, the focus of action had been on states and firms, but in the early 2000s this started to be complemented by a focus on individual practice. For example, in 2006 the UK environment minister proposed a system of Personal Carbon Allowances. Others have exhorted us to go on a low-carbon diet. There are now many organizations offering to help you measure and manage your carbon footprint, or to go ‘carbon neutral’ through carbon offsetting. Community groups have established voluntary carbon rationing systems. All of these practices have been accompanied by a plethora of books focusing on ‘what you can do’ to help limit climate change (e.g. Goodall 2007; Marshall 2007; Reay 2006; Spence 2005). The common denominator in all of these projects is the focus on individual practice in relation to climate change. We invoke the metaphor of ‘My Space’ deliberately. It is suggestive of how the forms of individualization in these projects simultaneously operate through the sorts of communicative rationality involved like those in ‘Web 2.0’ technologies like Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Jaiku, Tagged and Flickr. At the same time, the phrase implies the appropriation of climate change for an individual, almost narcissistic subject, who thinks of ‘their emissions’ and their responsibilities regarding them. But this subject, while narcissistic, is also forced to problematize her/his practices through peer pressure, comparison and communication
Learning to Cope:The Development of European Immigration Policies Concerning the Mediterranean Caught Between National and Supra-national Narratives
No full text(In)convenient convergences : "climate refugees", apocalyptic discourses and the depoliticization of the debate on climate-induced migration
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Spatializing the Environmental Apocalypse
Get PDFDepictions of life in the Anthropocene often envision a future of environmental catastrophe where natural resources have been depleted and the Earth has been ravaged by storms and drought, finally turning into uninhabitable wasteland. The term ‘environmental apocalypse’ has been coined to highlight the similarities between the current environmental condition and biblical descriptions of the end of the world. This chapter shows that notions of environmental apocalypse are strongly related to a modernist understanding of linear time. Through an engagement with postcolonial theology, this chapter argues that a more politicized understanding of the environmental apocalypse comes about when the end of the world is conceived as variably distributed across geographical, social, and material divides in the present. To highlight the importance of spatializing the environmental apocalypse, this chapter introduces examples from the field of biodiversity preservation, specifically, the politics of seeds
Just Adaptation? How the Diffusion of Norms in the Global Climate Regime Affects International Climate Politics
No full textPolitics in the international climate regime is a balancing act between intra- and intergenerational justice, as it has to account for both the needs of developing countries and those of future generations. Following a constructivist approach, this paper argues that international climate politics are heavily dependent upon the way climate change and the appropriate behavior required to prevent it are constructed collectively. The article shows how the diffusion of norms and changing images of climate change have shifted the interests of the actors under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As a result, adaptation became more and more widely accepted as a necessary step in international climate politics in advancing the strategy of climate change avoidance. This also represents a shift from a focus on intergenerational justice as the main normative goal of the convention, to a broader aim of sustainable development that comprises both inter- and intragenerational justice
Learning to Cope:The Development of European Immigration Policies Concerning the Mediterranean Caught Between National and Supra-national Narratives
No full textGerechte Anpassung? Wie die Diffusion der Normen im globalen Klimaregime die internationale Klimapolitik beeinflusst
Get PDF"Politik im Rahmen des internationalen Klimaregimes ist ein Balanceakt zwischen intra- und intergenerationeller Gerechtigkeit, denn sie muss sowohl den Bedürfnissen der Entwicklungsländer als auch denen der zukünftigen Generationen gerecht werden. Dieser in konstruktivistischer Tradition geschriebene Aufsatz verdeutlicht, dass eine wesentliche Abhängigkeit von internationaler Klimapolitik gegenüber der kollektiven Auslegung des Diskurses über den Klimawandel und das entsprechende Verhalten festzustellen ist. Der Artikel zeigt, wie die Diffusion der Normen und das wechselnde Bild vom Klimawandel die Interessen der Akteure im Rahmen der UN-Rahmenkonvention über den Klimawandel beeinflusst haben. Daraus folgt, dass die Anpassung an veränderte klimatische Bedingungen mehr und mehr als eine akzeptable Strategie der internationalen Klimapolitik gesehen wird. Dies bedeutet ebenfalls eine Schwerpunktverlagerung, weg von der intergenerationellen Gerechtigkeit, als dem normativen Hauptziel der Konvention, und hin zu einem weiter gefassten Ziel von nachhaltiger Entwicklung mit intra- und intergenerationellen Gerechtigkeitselementen." (Autorenreferat
Explaining the diversity of resilience in the climate change and security discourse: Resilience in translation
Get PDFThe concept of resilience has taken the hearts of Western practitioners and decision makers in development, environmental, or security policy by storm - or so it seems. In the looming "climate of complexity" produced by unfolding global warming, the idea of resilience, as the ability of systems and communities to autonomously recover after shocks and to adapt to changing environmental conditions, appears promising. Yet, different versions of resilience co-exist and compete with each other in diverse political arenas and fields of practice. As a result, resilience resists any conceptual fixation - making it hard for policy-makers and practitioners to agree upon a common definition of resilience. This essay seeks to explain the diversity of resilience by looking at processes of its "translation". The translation of resilience here refers to both the transfer of the concept from one discursive field to another as well as the adoption and reinterpretation of resilience through actors in concrete resilience projects on the ground
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