Carbon Criminals, Climate Crimes and Prospects for Climate Justice in the New Political Era

• In Event: The Prospects for Human Justice and Species Survival in an Era of Political Transformation

Abstract

This paper identifies four forms of state-corporate climate crimes: 1) Crimes of Continued Extraction of Fossil Fuels and Emission of Greenhouse Gases (GHG); 2) Crimes of Socially Organized Denial of Climate Change; 3) Crimes of Political Omission related to the Mitigation of GHG; and 4) Crimes of Militarized Adaptation to Climate Disruptions. Prospects for responding to these crimes, holding carbon criminals accountable for these blameworthy harms and achieving some rough form of climate justice were already grim, but in the new era of political transformation wrought by the recent U.S. election they have been dramatically reduced. Specific threats to climate justice in the new political era are assessed and the paper concludes that absent strong political resistance from a mass social movement all forms of climate crimes will increase posing an existential threat to the human prospect.

Author

• Ronald C Kramer, Western Michigan University