No Place for the Political: Micro‐Geographies of the Paris Climate Conference 2015

Abstract

Building upon post-foundational political philosophies, this article scrutinizes the Paris Climate Conference in December 2015 from a micro-geographical perspective. The analysis suggests that three different spaces exist at the site of the summit and reveals how their constituting practices and material arrangements rendered "Paris" post-democratic. We begin with exposing the staged statements of the world's political elites in the meticulously orchestrated Leaders Event as different phenotypes of the post-democratic condition. We then investigate the formal negotiations in the cordoned-off backrooms, where positions within the system were at stake, but not the system as such. Finally, we wander through the strictly policed "trade fair" and unveil attempts to entice delegates into techno-managerial solutions to the climate crisis. In the conclusion, we ponder over the prospects of environmental activism at the COPs in the light of their massive depoliticization.

Beyond shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and representative concentration pathways (RCPs): climate policy implementation scenarios for Europe, the US and China

“…The fact that liberal democracy has tended to subvert environmental necessities to the demands of economic growth (narrowly defined) resulting in a depoliticisation of climate policy (see e.g. Kythreotis, 2012;Swyngedouw, 2011;Weisser & Müller-Mahn, 2017), suggests a bifurcation of IS1 into 'Big business takes control' and 'Grassroots activists take control' pathways. The former, in the current global climate governance context, seems more likely than the latter.…”

Citizen Social Science for More Integrative and Effective Climate Action: A Science-Policy Perspective

“…Currently, important political arenas for climate policy decisions like UNFCCC Conference of the Parties have been dominated by national governments and closed-off to the lay citizen. While lay citizens often (rightfully) demonstrate at such climate negotiations, there remains a physical and political barrier between where state-led political decisions are made and the equitable and just contribution that citizens should make to the climate change political process, as recent research on the Paris Conference of the Parties has shown (Weisser and Müller-Mahn, 2016).…”

Financialisation, Climate Finance, and the Calculative Challenges of Managing Environmental Change

“…In this move toward insurance‐based finance, the Paris Agreement text on loss and damage, Article 8, Section 4, flagged future areas of cooperation on loss and damage as “Comprehensive risk assessment and management; (f) Risk insurance facilities, climate risk pooling and other insurance solutions… [alongside] (h) Resilience of communities” (UNFCCC :8). This signposting occurred in the context of a Treaty text which effectively removed the right to sovereign risk liability based in historic emissions (see Weisser and Müller‐Mahn :811). Thus in an already hyper‐indebted Africa, governments and municipalities will be encouraged to buy insurance‐denominated debt instruments, or issue their own securities to investors, covering weather, natural disasters, catastrophes and other multiple risks, and pay a monthly interest premium to the bond holder, with the promise of a pay‐out if an event registers as worthy in the trigger matrix owned by the insurer.…”