What are the democratic requirements for effective climate action? how can ‘climate democracy’ be conceptualised?
Liberal democracies emerged on the back of fossil fuels, creating what Tim Mitchell called ‘carbon democracy’. Three decades of climate policy have affirmed the controlling influence of fossil fuel interests. Runaway climate change now threatens the very foundations of social life. Today we face a very clear democratic question, of whether the fossil fuel sector has the right to determine the planet’s climate future. Achieving global energy transformation at the scope and scale needed requires a democratic transformation, to overcome the stranglehold. This book examines these requirements. It debates the political constituencies, agendas and institutions that are emerging from climate crisis, comparing evidence of emergent themes. New claims are emerging, for ‘green deals’, ‘climate justice’, ‘energy justice’, ‘energy democracy’ and ‘de-growth’, reflecting a new intensity of contestation as climate change impacts deepen.
This book will be of great relevance to students, researchers and policymakers with an interest in comparative politics, democracy studies, climate change and environmental policies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Globalizations.
This book examines these requirements. It debates the political constituencies, agendas and institutions that are emerging from climate crisis, comparing evidence of emergent themes. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Globalizations.
Introduction - Rage into action: from carbon democracy to climate
democracy?
1. Reluctant transformers or reconsidering opposition to climate
change mitigation? German think tanks between environmentalism and
neoliberalism
2. Energy transition and dialectics: tracing discursive
resistance to coal through discourse coalition in India
3. Democratizing
global climate governance? The case of indigenous representation in the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
4. Who wins and who loses
from renewable energy transition? Large-scale solar, land, and livelihood in
Karnataka, India
5. Legitimizing energy transitions through community
participation: Germany and Australia at a crossroad
6. Comparing local energy
conflicts in NSW Australia: moving to climate generosity
7. Climate camps and
environmental movements: impacting the coal industry and practicing system
change
8. Climate movements in Germany, India, and Australia: dynamics of
transition, transformation, and emergency
9. Climate, violence, resource
extraction and ecological debt: global implications of an assassination on
South Africa's coal mining belt
James Goodman is Professor in Social and Political Sciences at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Technology, Sydney where he researches climate change and energy transitions. He is the co-author of the book Beyond the Coal Rush and Decarbonising Electricity with Tom Morton.
Tom Morton is at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany. He researches climate communication and is an award-winning documentary producer. He has co-authored the book, Beyond the Coal Rush and Decarbonising Electricity with James Goodman.
