Climate Action in a Globalizing World: Comparative Perspectives on Environmental Movements in the Global North (Environmental Politics)

✍ Scribed by Carl Cassegard (editor), Linda Soneryd (editor), Hakan Thorn (editor), Asa Wettergren (editor)

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 279
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The existence and urgency of global climate change is a matter of scientific consensus. Yet the global politics of climate change have been anything but consensual. In this context, a wave of global climate activism has emerged in the last decade in response to the perceived failure of the political negotiations.

This book provides a unique comparative study of environmental movements in USA, Japan, Denmark and Sweden, analyzing their interaction with the international climate institutions of the United Nations, with national governments, and with currents in the global climate movement. It documents how and why the movement evolved between the Copenhagen Summit of 2009 and the Paris Summit of 2015, altering its strategies and tactics while attracting new actors to the issue area. Further, it demonstrates how the development of global environmental networks has increased contact between environmental movements in the Global North and those from the Global South, resulting in the establishment of ‘climate justice’ as a political cause and unifying frame for global climate activism.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of contributors
List of abbreviations
Preface
1. Climate action in a globalizing world: An introduction
Introduction: From the Warsaw walkout to the Paris Agreement
Climate activism and global governance
National comparisons in the context of political globalization
Green governance – a critical view
Social movements – national, international, transnational
and global
Movement institutionalization and globalization
Advanced liberal government, resistance and responsibilization
Institutionalization and (de-)politicization
National cases in a global context
Main arguments and structure of the book
Notes
References
PART I: Global perspectives: COP as a space for climate activism
2. Climate justice, equity and movement mobilization
The emergence of climate justice as a movement concept
Climate justice as a nodal point of global climate activism from Warsaw to Paris
Justice and/or equity? – a struggle over interpretation
Conclusion
Notes
References
3. Governing dissent in a state of emergency: Police and protester interactions in the global space of the COP
Protest policing and summit protests in the twenty-first century
The state of exception in practice and in principle
Climate protests and their policing prior to COP21
Protest and its policing in Paris 2015
The run-up to COP21
November 29: Place de la République
False Solutions COP21
Red Lines
Governing (through) uncertainty
Conclusion
Notes
References
4. Mobilizing emotions in the global sphere: Global solidarity and the regime of rationality
Introduction
Emotions in social movements
Climate justice and global political solidarity
Solidarities and COY
Organizational politics (1): Spaces
Organizational politics (2): Inclusions and divisions
On-site feeling rules: The emotional regime and politics at COP
Emotional regimes in contrast: rationality vs. solidarity
Coping and adaptation
Conclusion
Notes
References
5. COP as a global public sphere: News media frames, movement frames, and the media standing of climate movement actors
Critical and constructionist approaches to the media coverage of social movements
Climate movements and media representations in four newspapers
Japan: Asahi Shimbun
Denmark: Politiken
Sweden: Dagens Nyheter
The United States: New York Times
Concluding discussion
Note
References
PART II: National environmental movements in a global context: Denmark, Japan, Sweden and the United States
6. Learning from defeat: The strategic reorientation of the U.S. climate movement
Introduction
The U.S. climate movement: From Earth Day to the People’s Climate March
How does defeat affect mobilization?
The narrative of defeat in the U.S. climate movement
Target diversification post-Copenhagen
Reinforcing the “outside game”
Climate justice and normative change
Conclusion: The U.S. movement in comparative perspective
Notes
References
7. Between government and grassroots: Challenges to institutionalization in the Japanese environmental movement
The institutionalization of climate activism in Japan
The run-up to Copenhagen and the lack of a climate justice discourse in Japan
Post-Copenhagen and post-Fukushima directions
Conclusion
Notes
References
8. Denmark – from a green economy toward a new eco-radicalism?
Introduction
Institutionalization of the Danish environmental movement
Moments of mobilization
The climate justice framework
Renewed eco-radicalism and politicization of climate change
Conclusion
Notes
References
Online sources
9. The Swedish environmental movement: Politics of responsibility between climate justice and local transition
Introduction
The Swedish Environmental Movement, 1970–2000: Institutionalization and globalization
The 2000s: The emergence of climate activism
Climate justice – the Swedish version
Politics of responsibility: Institutionalization and responsibilization
Conclusion
Notes
References
PART III: Concluding reflections: New perspectives on climate action
10. Hegemony and environmentalist strategy: Global governance, movement mobilization and climate justice
Taking on the responsibility to address climate change: Climate governance as self-government
COP as a global public sphere and a space for mobilization
Environmental movements in the Global North: In between national politics and globalizing moments
Environmentalist strategy and movement unity: From Warsaw to Paris and beyond
Notes
References
Appendix: Method and material
The research project
Interviews
Field work during COP meetings
Other participant observations
Media analysis
Observations of demonstrations and police–protester interaction
Surveys
Other material
Interviews
Index