1st Edition

Interpretive Approaches to Global Climate Governance (De)constructing the Greenhouse

Edited By Chris Methmann, Delf Rothe, Benjamin Stephan Copyright 2013
    266 Pages 10 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    280 Pages 10 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Global climate change is perceived to be one of the biggest challenges for international politics in the 21st century. This work seeks to fuse a global governance perspective together with different interpretive approaches, offering a novel way of looking at international climate politics. Equipped with a common interpretive tool-kit, the authors examine different issue-areas and excavate the contours of an overall pattern – the depoliticisation of climate governance. It is this concept which represents the overarching theme connecting the different contributions, addressing issues such as how the securitization of climate change conceals its socio-economic roots; how highly political decisions and value-judgements are couched in the terms of science; how the reframing of climate change as a matter of economic calculation and investment narrows the scope of political action; and how the prevailing concentration on technological solutions to climate change turns it into a mere administrative issue to be tackled by experts. Highlighting the depoliticisation of highly political issues provides a means to bring the political back into one of the most important issue areas of 21st century world politics.

    The editors have assembled a series of 14 interpretive inquiries into discourses of global climate governance which aim to flesh out an interpretive methodology, demonstrating the value it offers to those seeking to achieve a better understanding of global climate governance.


    This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental politics, political theory and climate change.

    1. Introduction: How and why to deconstruct the greenhouse Chris Methmann, Delf Rothe and Benjamin Stephan  2. Discursive Interplay and Co-constitution: Carbonification of Environmental Discourses Ayşem Mert  Part I: The Economization of Climate Change  3. Climate Politics as Investment: Understanding Discourse through Governmental Practice Simon Wolf  4. How to Trade ‘Not Cutting Down Trees’: A Governmentality Perspective on the Commodification of Avoided Deforestation Benjamin Stephan  5. Interpretive Openness and Climate Action in an Age of Market Environmentalism Larry Lohmann  Part II: The Securitization of Climate Change  6. Climate Chains: Neo-Malthusianism, Militarism and Migration Betsy Hartmann  7. Apocalypse Now (And Then)! From Exceptional Rhetorics to Risk Management in Global Climate Politics Chris Methmann and Delf Rothe  8. (In)Convenient Convergences: ‘Climate Refugees’, apocalyptic discourses and the depoliticization of climate induced migration Giovanni Bettini  Part III: The Technocratization of Climate Change  9. My Space: Governing Individuals’ Carbon Emissions Matthew Paterson and Johannes Stripple  10. Governing Knowledge Through START and the Expansion of Global Environmental Change Research Ola Uhrqvist  11. Climate Engineering: Spectacle, Tragedy or Solution? A Content Analysis of News Media Framing Holly Jean Buck  Part IV: Between De- and Repoliticisation  12. White Ponchos Dripping Away? Glacier Narratives in Bolivian Climate Change Discourse Anna Kaijser  13. ‘Climate Justice’, ‘Green Economy’ or ‘a one planet lifestyle’ –Hegemonic Narratives in Transnational NGOs and Social Movements Philip T. Bedall  14. Building Legitimacy: Consensus and Conflict over Historic Responsibility for Climate Change Mathias Friman  15. Democratizing the Global Climate Regime John S. Dryzek and Hayley Stevenson  16. Reflections Chris Methmann, Delf Rothe and Benjamin Stephan

    Biography

    Chris Methmann, Delf Rothe and Benjamin Stephan are all at the University of Hamburg, Germany.