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On the Outside

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Struggles for Climate Justice
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Abstract

Outside the secured spaces of international negotiations, open forums and demonstrations highlight other participants and discourses in the broader conversation about climate change. Organizers intentionally structure political activity in these settings through connective forms of spatial and social practice, challenging the governmental closures of official meetings and facilitating the coming together of a diverse set of affected groups and allies. Analytical work by actors involved in these settings is also crucially connective. It illustrates the key role of alternative forms of knowledge in recognizing climate injustice and putting forth meaningful socio-ecologically relational alternatives. This “outside” work is difficult in its own ways, however. The chapter therefore also explores a series of material and political challenges associated with these transnationally connective practices and analyses.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “Protect the environment” and “Welcome COP16 – The state of Quintana Roo where Anarchy and Corruption will always go forward.”

  2. 2.

    See summary and final declaration of the summit at La Via Campesina 2010a.

  3. 3.

    See also Chatterton et al. 2013, on the outside mobilizations of Copenhagen.

  4. 4.

    Cf. Routledge 2017; Routledge and Cumbers 2009 on “convergence spaces.”

  5. 5.

    This chapter emphasizes examples from Durban, during COP17, where conditions of time and access to those with local knowledge enabled particularly fruitful observation and analysis of what are wider dynamics in transnational climate justice mobilization.

  6. 6.

    Cf. Routledge 2017.

  7. 7.

    See La Via Campesina 2010b.

  8. 8.

    Gersmann and Vidal 2011; Mary Robinson Foundation—Climate Justice 2011; Kodili 2011.

  9. 9.

    Quoted in Oloo 2011, together with a description of the deliberative process from which the Caravaners’ demands emerged aligned.

  10. 10.

    In this respect, these spaces fit the concept of Global Justice Network “convergence spaces” developed by Routledge and Cumbers 2009.

  11. 11.

    Occupy Cop17 2014.

  12. 12.

    Direct observation. The Speakers’ Corner was also the center of an impromptu march on the day before the Global Day of Action. The website for the gathering also provided video statements by international activists. Occupy Cop17 2014.

  13. 13.

    Direct observation. See Takver 2011.

  14. 14.

    Direct observation. See Goodman 2011.

  15. 15.

    Cf. Swyngedouw 2005; see Chap. 6.

  16. 16.

    Dismantle Corporate Power 2012.

  17. 17.

    FOEI 2012.

  18. 18.

    Ibid, 4.

  19. 19.

    Ibid, 7.

  20. 20.

    Canadian Youth Delegation, joined by 137 delegates and 21 observer organizations, 2012.

  21. 21.

    For example, Banktrack 2011; Global Witness 2011.

  22. 22.

    See, for example, Vidal 2012.

  23. 23.

    Occupy COP17 2011.

  24. 24.

    International Council on Human Rights Policy 2009, iii–iv.

  25. 25.

    Robinson addressing the crowd assembled at the destination of the Day of Action march in Copenhagen. Recording on file with the author. See Introduction.

  26. 26.

    ActionAid et al. 2010b (Climate justice brief #12: Human Rights and Climate Change), released for the Cancún COP, with contributions from seventeen organizations including ActionAid, Friends of the Earth International, JS – Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD), Jubilee South, PACJA, and the Third World Network.

  27. 27.

    Ibid, 1.

  28. 28.

    Ibid, 2.

  29. 29.

    See, for example, UNFCCC 2019; REDD-Monitor 2019.

  30. 30.

    Mueller 2012, 72.

  31. 31.

    See, e.g., IEN Executive Director Tom Goldtooth’s statement quoted in the Preface.

  32. 32.

    See Environmental Justice Climate Change Initiative 2002; Climate Justice Now! 2007; Climate Justice Now! 2010; Environmental Justice Leadership Forum on Climate Change 2015; Global Justice Ecology Project 2015.

  33. 33.

    See United Nations 2011.

  34. 34.

    See, for example, Heinrich Böll Foundation 2011.

  35. 35.

    See Stand With Africa 2012.

  36. 36.

    Kodili 2011; ActionAid 2011.

  37. 37.

    Bote 2011; Grassroots Global Justice Alliance 2011.

  38. 38.

    Hargreaves 2012, 9.

  39. 39.

    Rural Women’s Assembly 2011.

  40. 40.

    Occupy COP17 2014.

  41. 41.

    Ibid, Climate Justice Now! 2011.

  42. 42.

    ActionAid et al. 2010a. See also Roberts and Parks 2009; Third World Network 2009.

  43. 43.

    EJOLT 2013.

  44. 44.

    Ibid.

  45. 45.

    Government of Bolivia 2009. “Developed countries and corporations owe a two-fold climate debt to the poor majority: For their historical and continuing excessive emissions – denying developing countries their fair share of atmospheric space – they have an ‘emissions debt’; For their contribution to the adverse effects of climate change – requiring developing countries to adapt to rising climate impacts and damage – they have an ‘adaptation debt.’ The sum of these debts constitutes their climate debt, which is part of a larger ecological, social and economic debt owed by the rich industrialized world to the poor majority.” ActionAid et al. 2010a. Historical responsibility being for many parties a central element of Common but Differentiated Responsibility and Respective Capabilities (CBDR-RC). See Chap. 3. See also Friman 2007.

  46. 46.

    Government of Bolivia 2009, 47.

  47. 47.

    Roberts and Parks 2009.

  48. 48.

    Jubilee South 2010, 2.

  49. 49.

    See, for example, World Development Movement and Jubilee Debt Campaign 2009; ActionAid 2009. ActionAid cites supporting analysis by Stamp Out Poverty: Stamp Out Poverty 2009; Stamp Out Poverty & Institute for Development Studies 2011. See also the Robin Hood Tax organization’s analysis of climate debt: Robin Hood Tax 2010.

  50. 50.

    See descriptions of the Cochabamba meetings in Building Bridges Collective 2010; Mueller 2012.

  51. 51.

    WPCCC 2010b, 1.

  52. 52.

    WPCCC 2010a, 2.

  53. 53.

    WPCCC 2010b, 2.

  54. 54.

    WPCCC 2010a, 1.

  55. 55.

    A committee presented the two texts to the July 2010 UNFCCC intercessional meeting in Bonn. Mueller 2012. Other initiatives launched in Cochabamba included proposals for an international environmental court and a global referendum on the rights of Mother Earth.

  56. 56.

    La Via Campesina’s invitation to gather in Cancún is reprinted as an appendix (noted as page xii) in Building Bridges Collective 2010.

  57. 57.

    Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature 2015.

  58. 58.

    See UNCSD 2011; Büscher and Arsel 2012.

  59. 59.

    See announcement for and video documentation of Solón’s talk at UKZN. Centre for Civil Society n.d.-a, b.

  60. 60.

    Larry Lohmann, Patrick Bond, and Michael Dorsey’s work is among the most developed critical scholarship on this topic. See, for example, Lohmann 2008; Bond and Dorsey 2010; Bond 2011.

  61. 61.

    Cf. Paterson 2011; Spash 2011.

  62. 62.

    WPCCC 2010b, 1. On the relationship between Buen Vivir and other political-ontological traditions, see Gudynas 2011.

  63. 63.

    See Kovel 2007; Chan et al. 2016; Gudynas 2017.

  64. 64.

    One Million Climate Jobs 2011.

  65. 65.

    Author’s observation. See La Via Campesina 2011a.

  66. 66.

    Author’s observation. See La Via Campesina 2011b.

  67. 67.

    See, for example, Keck and Sikkink 1998, 1999.

  68. 68.

    Routledge and Cumbers 2009; cf. Derman 2014.

  69. 69.

    Climate Justice Now! 2007.

  70. 70.

    Climate Justice Now! 2008, 2010.

  71. 71.

    Swyngedouw 2007, 2010.

  72. 72.

    Chatterton et al. 2013.

  73. 73.

    Massey 2005.

  74. 74.

    Cf. Routledge and Cumbers 2009 on similar gatherings as “convergence spaces,” and Routledge 2017 on spatial strategies of activists, including the Paris COP of 2015.

  75. 75.

    Cf. Hart 2013 on “translation” as a crucial political modality.

  76. 76.

    See, for example, Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature 2015.

  77. 77.

    Harvey and Williams 1995.

  78. 78.

    Desai quoted in Bond 2012, 63–64. See also Hargreaves 2012.

  79. 79.

    Bond 2012.

  80. 80.

    See the official website for the Cúpula dos Povos, and the final declaration of the peoples’ summit process that convened there: Government of Brazil 2012; People’s Summit for Environmental and Social Justice 2012.

  81. 81.

    McKie and Zee 2009; Johnson 2012.

  82. 82.

    See Hargreaves 2012.

  83. 83.

    Butler 2011.

  84. 84.

    Cf. Wainwright and Mann 2018.

  85. 85.

    News sources placed the number of marchers between 8000 and 20,000; for example, The Telegraph 2011; Vidal 2011.

  86. 86.

    See official host country documentation: COP17 CMP7 2011.

  87. 87.

    See, for example, Hargreaves analysis of the exchange. Hargreaves 2012.

  88. 88.

    See discussion of this general strategy of comparatively greater engagement on the part of radical climate justice activists in Mueller 2012. Differing forms of engagement in governance and recent direct action-based mobilization strategies are taken up in Chap. 6.

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Derman, B.B. (2020). On the Outside. In: Struggles for Climate Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27965-3_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27965-3_4

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