Author Meets Critics: Two Worlds of Global Climate Activism

Session Submission Type: Author meet critics

Session Description

Global climate activism has historically mirrored capitalist and colonial power relations within its movement groups and networks. These inequalities obstructed cooperation in the movement and caused a 16-year split (from 2007-2023). During this time, governments of the Global North successfully transformed the international climate regime from one that mandated emissions reductions (Kyoto Protocol) to one relying on voluntary commitments to reducing emissions (Paris Agreement). Groups from the Global South rose to resist the unequal power relations that marked global environmental organizing, the harms they were exposed to, and the systems that enabled those harms. To that end, they built transnational organizations and ties, drawing strength and resources from global justice organizing of the 1990s. By 2023, climate justice organizing exerted power to compel Global North groups dominating global environmental organizing to support their leadership and shift the demands of the largest global climate activist network, the Climate Action Network. These changes in global environmental organizing structure and demands yielded significant political consequences, such as the Indigenous Peoples Platform and the Loss and Damage Fund. Yet, despite significant victories, organizing challenges persist. Climate organizing in the 2020s is trapped in an international climate regime designed for incremental and voluntary action, when urgent action is needed. Although systemic solutions are needed, progress under the UNFCCC is incremental and likely to fail to achieve the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals. The Global North continues to concentrate climate activism funding and various groups continue to pursue and lend support for solutions widely acknowledged as inadequate, such as carbon markets. Climate justice organizing faces issues to sustain its activism, including the resources needed to mobilize the action needed to reduce the exposure to the harms resulting from climate change. Further, climate justice groups must find ways to balance transformative and system-change-oriented work while maintaining their efforts to influence international climate negotiations. A tactically diverse approach to global climate action is likely to enhance the power of global climate organizing.

Sub Unit

• Related Groups / Environmental Politics and Theory

Chairs

• Jennifer Hadden Brown University

• Devin Judge-Lord University of Michigan

Presenter

• Fernando Arturo Tormos Aponte University of Pittsburgh