Climate Change and Politics

Abstract

Climate change is becoming prominent in mainstream politics. Liberal governments have generally learnt into the narratives of climate action, claiming it as a priority, while consistently failing to make significant progress towards just transition, adaptation, and associated economic transformations. Eco-fascism is said to be looking, but actually existing far-right. Governments have tended towards a more steadfast solidarity with fossil capital. They have not demonstrated a willingness to break with capitalist economies which produce the climate crisis. Within liberal democracies, left-wing and socialist parties have demonstrated the strongest commitment to programs of economic transformation, most commensurate with the scale and nature of the climate crisis. Whether Bernie Sanders’ Presidential campaign in the US, Jeremy Corbyn’s election campaigns as leader of the UK Labour Party, or Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s campaign for President with La France Insoumise, these climate justice socialists have rarely taken state power. While China’s geopolitical rise may pose a challenge to the US’ geopolitical hegemony, possibly even including its brand of capitalism, there is little evidence that China’s rise will be any better for the climate in the coming decades. At the same time as investing in renewable technologies at home, China is financing new coal power and mines across Asia and Africa. Where other political formations have neglected climate change, Green parties around the world have sought to establish themselves as the electoral vehicles for environmentalism. Like their ideological orientation, their success has been inconsistent. Lacking strong ideological commitments, Greens have often allied with neoliberal or even far-right governments in exchange for proximity to state power.