This year鈥檚 UN climate summit (Cop30) in Bel茅m, Brazil, begins with a familiar dilemma: how can we tackle a highly political, long-term problem that involves every country of the world?
Governments, experts and activists have been trying to address since the early 1990s, yet global greenhouse gas emissions remain at .
Emissions growth may be slowing, but even pro-climate action strategies seem to be pulling in different 鈥� or even, antagonistic 鈥� directions. Our presents these antagonisms as a choice between 鈥渟tability鈥� and 鈥減oliticisation鈥� in climate governance.
According to those favouring stability, governments should lock in steady, long-term policies that place us on a predictable and gradual track to much lower emissions. Creating policies that commit us to a certain path should help businesses to invest in ways that meet this predictable trajectory.
However, if it is weakened and made inadequate by pro-fossil fuel lobbyists and governments, then the stable path can still meander into climate catastrophe. This is the course we are presently on.
On the other hand, for those pursuing the politicisation of climate action, it is better to encourage political conflict and protests that constantly create pressure for more significant and rapid policy change.
Such strategies can disrupt pro-fossil fuel lobbyists鈥� grip and expose strategies used by some political figures to dismantle the hard-fought climate goals already in place. But by encouraging increased politicisation of these issues, we may open the door to and others seeking to slow or stop climate policy action altogether.
Both schools of thought 鈥� stability or politicisation 鈥� have their supporters and detractors. Both have benefits and downsides. However, these have rarely been discussed in conversation with one another, until now.
At Cop30, these distinct strategies will be under the spotlight.
The stability or politicisation dilemma helps to explain why building a strategy that works over years and decades creates difficult questions, not only about policy design but approaches for different organisations and states. These challenges change according to which level of government, which country, and which economic sector is in play.
For instance, it is easier to push for politicisation and conflict when you鈥檙e not a member of a marginalised or racialised community already facing to political participation.
Conversely, it is hard to avoid having to engage in politicisation and conflict in areas where there are deep historical power structures that need to be challenged. For example, in the UK, land ownership concentration blocks 鈥� both because landowners want to keep peat moors dry to maximise their grouse shooting revenue, and because the land concentration means they are very powerful within the British state.
Tension between timeframes
Our traces these dynamics across a range of cases, from the fossil fuel industry in the US to strategies used by the and ; from to environmental justice ; and from arguments about to generation.
International relations expert previous UN climate summits have been shaped by this clash in strategies, right back to the Kyoto protocol, the 1997 agreement that set emissions targets for economically developed countries.
Whereas the EU was previously the driving force behind depoliticisation of negotiations, more recently, countries such as India and China are also pursuing such strategies. As Allan warns, this may delay the implementation of climate policies as more states debate how best to progress.
In Bel茅m at Cop30, similar dynamics will be at play. Efforts are ongoing to implement the 2015 agenda and process. Core issues remain on how to ensure regular reporting of emissions, alongside questions around who pays for the consequences of climate change.
At the same time, there will be a continued politicising push by certain countries and social movements. States such as the US, Saudi Arabia and their allies will be trying to politicise the negotiations to stymy progress. Meanwhile, social movements will be protesting to keep the pressure on negotiators and promote climate justice for those who are hardest hit by climate change.
, Senior Lecturer in Politics, ; , Professor of International Politics, , and , Professor of Global Governance & Human Security,
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