Climate Fiction, Climate Theory: Decolonising Imaginations of Global Futures

The international politics of climate change invokes the imagination of various potential global futures, ranging from techno-optimist visions of ecological modernisation to apocalyptic nightmares of climate chaos. This article argues that most dominant framings of the future in climate policy imaginaries tend to be depoliticised and linear visions of universal, homogenous time, with little spatio-temporal or ecological plurality. This article aims to convince IR scholars of climate politics that Africanfuturist climate fiction novels can contribute to the decolonisation of climate politics through radically different socio-climatic imaginaries to those that dominate mainstream imaginations of climate futures. The Africanfuturist climate fiction novels of authors such as Nnedi Okorafor, Lauren Beukes and Doris Lessing imagine different spaces, temporalities, ecologies and politics. Reading them as climate theory, they offer the possibility of a more decolonised climate politics, in which issues of land and climate justice, loss and damage, extractive political economies and the racialised and gendered violence of capitalism are central.

Researching climate justice: a decolonial approach to global climate governance

This article addresses the broader question of the special issue by reflecting on the coloniality of knowledge production in a context of global climate governance. Drawing on the rationale of the special issue, we highlight key dynamics in which knowledge shape climate policies and propose a decolonial approach at the nexus of academic knowledge production and policy formation by accounting for diverse ways of knowing climate justice. To this end, the article asks how to develop a decolonial approach to researching climate justice in order to identify the meaning-in-use of climate justice by affected people in what we describe as sensitive regions of the Arctic and the Mediterranean. To this end, the article develops a research design that accounts for diverse ways of knowing. The article proceeds as follows: first, we will discuss how diverse ways of knowing are related to global climate governance and climate justice; second, we outline our practice-based research framework that addresses research ethics, decolonial approaches and norm contestation; and third, we discuss how our approach can inform not only the co-production of research in climate governance, but also current debates on climate justice.

Mapping Climate Justice

A three-dimensional climate justice approach introduces to share the benefits and burden of climate change in an economically efficient, legally equitable, and practically feasible way around the globe. Climate justice within a country pays tribute to low- and high-income households carrying the same burden proportional to their dispensable income through consumption tax, progressive carbon taxation, and a corporate inheritance tax. Climate change burden sharing between countries ensures those countries benefiting more from a warmer environment bear higher responsibility regarding climate change mitigation and adaptation. Climate justice over time is proposed by an innovative bonds climate change burden sharing strategy.

Climate Justice in Durban

This chapter situates itself in the climate justice discourse and unpacks the paradoxes in state and grassroots action. It argues that due to market-orientated and neo-liberal water and sanitation governance, the failure to take into account water and climate change governance as well as ecological and institutional economics resulted in climate change chaos. Due to this paralysis, communities failed to adapt to climate variability. The illogicalities and ambiguities in what the municipality says and does leaves local communities at the vagaries of nature and to deal with the resulting chaos albeit with some doing so in quite inspiring ways. The empirical data is collected through 120 interviews and four participatory action workshops conducted with civil society actors, government officials, academics, and communities of AmaQadi situated in North Central Durban, Umbumbulu in South Durban, Wood Glen and Zamani B in Durban Outer West, Ntuzuma G and Soweto in North Central Durban. The key finding is that the municipal Climate Change Protection Unit adopted a ‘climate-resilient' strategy on the one hand, but on the other, city electricity officials built power stations in flood plains, the Economic Development Unit promoted a shopping mall in a wetland, and eThekwini Water is introducing unpopular UD toilets to deal with water scarcity, without looking at externalities in wetlands and the discharge of faecal waste from broken sewers that compromise biodiversity and ecosystem balances. This chapter is contributing knowledge of climate change resilience and adaptation by communities within the framework of new institutional and ecological economics.

Climate-Smart Agriculture Policy and (In)Justice for Smallholders in Developing Countries

This chapter analyzes whether the current policy for climate-smart agriculture meets the demands of climate justice and respects the rights of smallholders, and if not, how it should be amended. The study is based on a literature review and several interviews with climate-smart agriculture actors from diverse backgrounds: (1) consultant or practitioner, (2) farmer, (3) business or entrepreneur, (4) scientist. To examine the climate-smart agriculture concept and its implementation, the following ethical positions are mainly considered: (1) maximalist, (2) minimalist, (3) Pogge´s intermediate position, (4) Nussbaum's capability approach, (5) Kantian, (t) altruism. This study found that the current climate-smart agriculture approaches are not fairly implemented, due to the unjust sharing of benefits of income and burdens of emission reduction costs, among smallholders and big industries. According to the principles of climate justice, this sharing proportion should be equally distributed based on an individual's capacities and poverty should also be taken into consideration.