Just Adaptation? How the Diffusion of Norms in the Global Climate Regime Affects International Climate Politics

Politics in the international climate regime is a balancing act between intra- and intergenerational justice, as it has to account for both the needs of developing countries and those of future generations. Following a constructivist approach, this paper argues that international climate politics are heavily dependent upon the way climate change and the appropriate behavior required to prevent it are constructed collectively. The article shows how the diffusion of norms and changing images of climate change have shifted the interests of the actors under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As a result, adaptation became more and more widely accepted as a necessary step in international climate politics in advancing the strategy of climate change avoidance. This also represents a shift from a focus on intergenerational justice as the main normative goal of the convention, to a broader aim of sustainable development that comprises both inter- and intragenerational justice

Gerechte Anpassung? Wie die Diffusion der Normen im globalen Klimaregime die internationale Klimapolitik beeinflusst

"Politik im Rahmen des internationalen Klimaregimes ist ein Balanceakt zwischen intra- und intergenerationeller Gerechtigkeit, denn sie muss sowohl den Bedürfnissen der Entwicklungsländer als auch denen der zukünftigen Generationen gerecht werden. Dieser in konstruktivistischer Tradition geschriebene Aufsatz verdeutlicht, dass eine wesentliche Abhängigkeit von internationaler Klimapolitik gegenüber der kollektiven Auslegung des Diskurses über den Klimawandel und das entsprechende Verhalten festzustellen ist. Der Artikel zeigt, wie die Diffusion der Normen und das wechselnde Bild vom Klimawandel die Interessen der Akteure im Rahmen der UN-Rahmenkonvention über den Klimawandel beeinflusst haben. Daraus folgt, dass die Anpassung an veränderte klimatische Bedingungen mehr und mehr als eine akzeptable Strategie der internationalen Klimapolitik gesehen wird. Dies bedeutet ebenfalls eine Schwerpunktverlagerung, weg von der intergenerationellen Gerechtigkeit, als dem normativen Hauptziel der Konvention, und hin zu einem weiter gefassten Ziel von nachhaltiger Entwicklung mit intra- und intergenerationellen Gerechtigkeitselementen." (Autorenreferat

Just Adaptation? How the Diffusion of Norms in the Global Climate Regime Affects International Climate Politics

Politics in the international climate regime is a balancing act between intra- and intergenerational justice, as it has to account for both the needs of developing countries and those of future generations. Following a constructivist approach, this paper argues that international climate politics are heavily dependent upon the way climate change and the appropriate behavior required to prevent it are constructed collectively. The article shows how the diffusion of norms and changing images of climate change have shifted the interests of the actors under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As a result, adaptation became more and more widely accepted as a necessary step in international climate politics in advancing the strategy of climate change avoidance. This also represents a shift from a focus on intergenerational justice as the main normative goal of the convention, to a broader aim of sustainable development that comprises both inter- and intragenerational justice

Explaining the diversity of resilience in the climate change and security discourse. Resilience in translation

Research on security-related aspects of climate change is an important element of climate change impact assessments. Hamburg has become a globally recognized center of pertinent analysis of the climate-conflict-nexus. The essays in this collection present a sample of the research conducted from 2009 to 2018 within an interdisciplinary cooperation of experts from Universität Hamburg and other institutions in Hamburg related to the research group “Climate Change and Security” (CLISEC). This collection of critical assessments covers a broad understanding of security, ranging from the question of climate change as a cause of violent conflict to conditions of human security in the Anthropocene. The in-depth analyses utilize a wide array of methodological approaches, from agent-based modeling to discourse analysis

Digital Humanitarianism and the Visual Politics of the Refugee Camp: (Un)Seeing Control

Digital visual technologies have become an important tool of humanitarian governance. They allow the monitoring of crises from afar, making it possible to detect human rights violations and refugee movements, despite a crisis area being inaccessible. However, the political effects of such "digital humanitarianism" are understudied. This article aims to amend this gap by analyzing which forms of seeing, showing, and governing refugee camps are enabled by digital technologies. To this end, the article combines scholarship on the politics of the refugee camp with the emerging body of work on digital humanitarianism. It proposes the notion of a "visual assemblage of the refugee camp" to conceptualize the increasing adoption of visual technologies in refugee camp governance. Using the two paradigmatic cases of Zaatari and Azraq, two refugee camps for displaced Syrians in Jordan, the text outlines how this visual assemblage enacts the refugee camp in different ways - thus bringing about different versions of the camp. The case study reveals three such enactments of the refugee camp - as a technology of care and control; as a political space; and, as a governmental laboratory - and discusses how these interact and clash in everyday camp life

Violent Climate Imaginaries: Science-Fiction-Politics

There are many ways in which climate futures can be envisioned, such as global and regional climate models, scenarios of future emission trajectories, or pathways and visions of societal transformation. All these anticipatory practices aim to make the climatic future knowable in the present. In so doing, they quite often envision a climatic future that is inherently violent: a future marked by disasters, wars, mass migration, turmoil, and terror. This working paper seeks to explain the popularity and tenacity of such violent imaginaries of (future) climate change in scientific research, popular culture, and political discourse. For this, it asks two interrelated questions: First, how do violent imaginaries of future climate change come about? Second, why and how do these imaginaries circulate and proliferate? To answer these questions, the paper provides a discussion of the concept of “violence” and elaborates how different forms of it are featured in imaginaries of future climate change. On this basis, the paper then traces three different modes of future-making that together produce and reproduce violent climate imaginaries: modeling the future, writing the future, and visualizing the future. Finally, the paper proposes and discusses several factors that could help explaining the circulation of violent climate imaginaries between the fields of science, fiction, and politics. These factors include the existence of an interdiscourse that bridges different specialized discourses, the broader political economy of imaginaries, interpersonal relations between actors in different fields, and the coproduction of dominant imaginaries with broader technological developments

Violent Climate Imaginaries: Science-Fiction-Politics

There are many ways in which climate futures can be envisioned, such as global and regional climate models, scenarios of future emission trajectories, or pathways and visions of societal transformation. All these anticipatory practices aim to make the climatic future knowable in the present. In so doing, they quite often envision a climatic future that is inherently violent: a future marked by disasters, wars, mass migration, turmoil, and terror. This working paper seeks to explain the popularity and tenacity of such violent imaginaries of (future) climate change in scientific research, popular culture, and political discourse. For this, it asks two interrelated questions: First, how do violent imaginaries of future climate change come about? Second, why and how do these imaginaries circulate and proliferate? To answer these questions, the paper provides a discussion of the concept of “violence” and elaborates how different forms of it are featured in imaginaries of future climate change. On this basis, the paper then traces three different modes of future-making that together produce and reproduce violent climate imaginaries: modeling the future, writing the future, and visualizing the future. Finally, the paper proposes and discusses several factors that could help explaining the circulation of violent climate imaginaries between the fields of science, fiction, and politics. These factors include the existence of an interdiscourse that bridges different specialized discourses, the broader political economy of imaginaries, interpersonal relations between actors in different fields, and the coproduction of dominant imaginaries with broader technological developments

About the authors

Research on security-related aspects of climate change is an important element of climate change impact assessments. Hamburg has become a globally recognized center of pertinent analysis of the climate-conflict-nexus. The essays in this collection present a sample of the research conducted from 2009 to 2018 within an interdisciplinary cooperation of experts from Universität Hamburg and other institutions in Hamburg related to the research group “Climate Change and Security” (CLISEC). This collection of critical assessments covers a broad understanding of security, ranging from the question of climate change as a cause of violent conflict to conditions of human security in the Anthropocene. The in-depth analyses utilize a wide array of methodological approaches, from agent-based modeling to discourse analysis

Sensing the Ground:On the Global Politics of Satellite-based Activism

In recent years satellite imagery, previously restricted to the defense and intelligence communities, has been made available to a range of non-state actors as well. Non-governmental organizations, journalists, and celebrities like George Clooney now use remote sensing data like digital Sherlock Holmeses to investigate and reveal human rights abuses, political violence, environmental destruction, and eco-crimes from a distance. It is often said that the increasing availability and applicability of remote sensing technologies has contributed to the rise of what can be called ‘satellite-based activism’ empowering non-state groups to challenge state practices of seeing and showing. In this article we argue that NGO activism is not challenging the sovereign gaze of the state but, on the contrary, actually reinforcing it. We will bolster our arguments in this regard in two prominent fields of nongovernmental remote sensing: human rights and environmental governance