What Would Greta Do? Reframing Politics by the Youth Climate Justice Movement

• In Event: Political Movements, Politics on the Move: Justice, Resistance, and Activism

Abstract

Justice talk has come under criticism lately, with trenchant refutations from decolonial activists, environmentalists, feminists, and indigenous communities. Yet, the need to develop universalist frames for building solidarity, combating violence, and repairing and restoring deteriorating Earth systems has never been more urgent. This paper seeks answers in the clarity of the voices of the youth climate justice movement (YCJM), which eschews arid abstractions around justice and instead situates universalist political aspirations in the material conditions of the climate crisis. By identifying vital driving features of its assemblage in the power of interlocking elite networks of transnational mega-corporations and their supportive political routines and extractive regimes, the YCJM reminds us that it is no longer possible for these structures, first identified by Marx, to be hidden in the fog of philosophical charges of “onto-theology.” The Earth system catastrophe is a shared reality whose ethical demand is without doubt; it is no longer a choice between acting responsibly and remaining committed to one’s egotistical “life goals.” The search for authenticity, therefore, is in question; in its place, an ethic of universal responsibility has become inevitable.

The YJCM cuts through the fragmented particularities of identity politics today and proposes strategies parallel to those of the divestment and BLM movements. By directly confronting the inner circle’s capture of the world’s resources and its extractive methods, the climate justice alliance is pointing to far-reaching consequences entangled with the material effects of climate change. The networked coordination of the protagonists reproduces (capitalist) conditions of life and generates institutional path dependencies causing intersectional harms over the long haul. What needs special attention is the continual expression of these corruption syndromes in apparently stable cultural forms, along with practical trajectories for counterhegemonic strategy potentially guided by the YJCM.

Author

• Sudhir Chella Rajan, IIT Madras