Rescaling the land rush? Global political ecologies of land use and cover change in key scenario archetypes for achieving the 1.5 °C Paris agreement target

Abstract

Advancing future-oriented perspectives in political ecology and critical agrarian studies, this paper examines projected land use and land cover change (LULCC) dynamics in four ‘archetypal’ scenarios foregrounded by the IPCC for limiting global warming to 1.5°C by 2100. Focusing on the Global South, we explore how these archetypes project a radical reversal of historical LULCC and rural population trends, potentially implying a considerable rescaling of contemporary land rush dynamics. Taken together, land-based climate mitigation futures highlight risks related to the (re)production of relative surplus populations through processes of rural enclosure and accumulation by dispossession in the Global South.