Climate Justice Politics across Space and Scale

Abstract

After roughly two decades of growing activist interest in the climate problem, the deadlocked politics of formal climate change negotiations generated such divisions that a formal global network of radical proponents of ‘climate justice’ emerged. In December 2007, Climate Justice Now! was formed to transcend earlier technicist, market-oriented, insider strategies by environmental NGOs. South Africa is one place where climate justice politics reflected the top-down lack of political will and growing bottom-up anger. The spatial and scalar visions of climate justice activists at both global and local levels are worth considering in detail, given the importance of this work for planetary sustainability and the living conditions of future generations, as well as for transnational activism more generally. Using David Harvey's insights on crisis and displacement, the article suggests routes of analysis, strategies, tactics and alliances that can be compared between global and local levels, with South Africa as a case study.