Confronting Denial in Mainstream Climate Change Policy Discourse

Abstract

Coming increasingly into critical focus today are the limitations of standard distributional, procedural, retributive and recognitional components of an international order of climate justice that do not take the wider geopolitical aspects of global climate change sufficiently into consideration. For instance, the enduring influence of imperial histories of natural resource plunder (Carbon Brief, 2021) and related structures of economic, social and political inequality on the changing dynamics of a warming world are not taken into account (Moore, 2017). Similarly, the failure of this justice system to connect institutionally embedded patterns of discrimination and value inequality (NcNay, 2008) with current experiences of climate change disadvantage (Brugnach et al., 2014). This chapter explores the type of interpretive strategies used in international climate change policy discourse to deny the urgency of these issues and initiate corrective action. It will then consider how a new relational model of climate justice might be introduced to address such epistemic injustice and bring about greater equity in the distribution of climate related burdens and responsibilities.