Doctoral Dissertation Research: Climate Change, Law, and Transnational Space: The Politics of Climate Justice Mobilization

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

Recent studies have highlighted the differential impact of climate change on people and their livelihoods in different parts of the world. Such findings have led to widespread political mobilization for "climate justice" in a range of contexts. Human rights, legal argument, and international institutions have structured such efforts by several government and civil society advocates, while many NGOs and social movements have called instead for structural change, organizing popular mobilization across political scales. The varied framings and strategies employed by these groups bear upon the direction of future regulatory action and, ultimately, the production of physical and social geographies. Little scholarship, however, has examined these politics as they involve differently positioned actors, with different resources, stakeholders, and commitments. This doctoral dissertation project explores these themes through a comparative study of two significantly differentiated mobilization efforts for "just" climate regulation. The project asks (1) how the groups frame the problem of uneven climate change and appropriate responses, (2) what political opportunity structures exist for them and how they make strategic choices, and (3) how framings and opportunity structures inform each other, and the assessment of outcomes. In-depth interviews with key actors in two efforts, observations of meetings and actions in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the European Union, and texts produced by the two efforts will provide data to answer these questions. The findings will demonstrate the range of framings and political opportunities that characterize the two cases, relationships between these two definitive aspects of mobilization, and links between them and the factors that differentiate the cases, which include the institutional affiliations of key actors; forms of expertise; the ideological commitments of actors and their stakeholders; political scales of engagement; and legal vs. non-legal strategies. The project will analyze how differently positioned actors engage in formal political processes and direct action in response to the imminent and uneven environmental impacts associated with climate change. In so doing, it will unpack the divergent conceptualizations of global justice that these efforts pursue, which involve legal norms and processes, relational connections, and prescription for redistribution and redress in varying forms and degrees. It will examine how emergent scientific knowledge plays a role in the construction of political efforts that cross space to link disparate impacts, communities, and places, and how such efforts mobilize strategically at different political geographic scales. It will demonstrate the importance of actors' situatedness for their means and abilities to participate in processes of global governance and representative politics. This research has potential policy implications because it will lead to better understanding of advocacy practices and participation in current climate policy formation structures. It may also contribute to expanding knowledge of the political dimensions of climate change and its regulation in relation to themes of justice, issues of importance that have been recognized by inclusion in the mitigation section of the next Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. The study holds potential to contribute to knowledge in political geography, political ecology, as well as socio-legal studies, and to better integrate these literatures. The project will contribute to the training of a young scholar, and will incorporate results into teaching and learning opportunities.