Possibilities for Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World

Session Submission Type: Virtual Created Panel

Session Description

This panel explores approaches to climate justice that emphasize the non-ideal character of the world of politics and power in which solutions must be realized. Tomas Hatala scrutinizes the common framing of climate justice as a matter of "human rights" and argues that the anthropocentrism and legalism of prevailing human rights discourses make for a fraught frame for advancing climate justice, though he also suggests that the language of rights might be helpfully reframed by social movements seeking true justice. Michael Sardo argues that discourses of “just transition” provide a valuable corrective to theories of climate justice by focusing less on principles of justice and more on the means by which the transition to a carbon-free economy can empower vulnerable communities while facilitating democratic mobilization. Alex McLaughlin examines a novel element of climate injustice in which future generations are unable to engage in political resistance against the harms caused by the actions of prior generations, suggesting that climate justice must preserve what McLaughlin calls “intrinsic resistance goods,” including intergenerational solidarity between present and future victims of climate injustice. Finally, Ross Mittiga calls for a paradigm shift in climate ethics, noting that the current “climate-justice approach” generally assumes that its main audience is global elites and that recognition of moral principles by those elites is sufficient to motivate action on climate change. Against this conventional approach, Mittiga proposes a “climate-power approach” that focuses on the global majority and on cultivating the solidarity and counter-hegemonic power necessary to meaningfully shift global climate policies.

Sub Unit

• Related Groups / Environmental Politics and Theory

Individual Presentations

• Co-Opting Co-Optation: Beyond the “Human” in Human Rights in Climate Justice - Tomas Hatala, Concordia University

• “Leave No One Behind in a Zero Carbon Future:” Theorizing a Just Transition - Michael Christopher Sardo, Occidental College

• Climate Resistance and the Far Future - Alex McLaughlin, University of Cambridge

• Justice, Power, and Climate Change - Ross Mittiga, ​Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Chair

• Gregory Koutnik Hamilton College

Discussant

• Reed Kurtz The Ohio State University