Reckoning climate apartheid

Abstract

This paper provides a critical, interdisciplinary analysis of the current global landscape of climate action and response with the aim of determining its overall trajectory toward either justice and equity on the one hand, or exploitation and segregation on the other. It finds that tendencies toward the latter are far more pronounced. This paper summarizes those findings and presents arguments for three categories of climate action that are producing and/or exacerbating inequity, injustice, and segregation. They are: securitization (of resources, infrastructure, borders, and land), financialization (of exploitative mitigation and adaptation measures), and (im)mobilization (of migrants and the climate-vulnerable alongside the increased mobility of elite populations). An examination of the political rhetoric and public discourse associated with these trends follows, revealing widespread dehumanization and ‘othering’ used to condone a system that justifies protection for some populations and the expendability of others. Together, this analysis provides a framework for exposing and critiquing our current trajectory toward an outcome that is best described as climate apartheid.