CFP: Interrogating Climate Apartheid: Law, Economy and Culture

Organisers 

Professor Andrew Baldwin (Geography, Durham University) 

Dr Simona Capisani (Philosophy, Durham University) 

Dr Christopher Szabla (Law, Durham University) 

The term ‘climate apartheid’has been used in a variety of contextsto characteriseforms of unequalclimate change adaptation. It is often used broadly to describean observable pattern in which those with the means tosurvive climate changebecome physically separatedfrom the vast majority of the world’s population for whom surviving climate change will be an unaffordable luxury.Whether ‘climate apartheid’ is an appropriate termto describe this pattern remainsan open question. Still, the term has found its way into climate change legal discourse, economicreasoning,and popular culture, suggesting its growing importance among a variety of different climate change actors.The meaning of ‘climate apartheid’ is varied,oftensignifyinguneven patterns of climate-related mobility and immobility, infrastructure, exposure to risk, availability of insurance and access to the very means of survival, including capital, drinking water, energy, food, soil, land and biodiversity. Use of the term ‘climate apartheid’ also coincides with the insistenceon the part ofthe scientific community that planetary climatic conditions are far more dire than is often commonly realised. At the same time,ascendent authoritarianisms whichoften deny the science of climate changepose a significant challenge to the verylegal regimes that underpin collective action on climate change, and inequalities related to it, even while the impacts of climate change are often experienced acutely in places where denialist sentiment is widespread. 

This two-day conference provides an interdisciplinary platform for academic and non-academicstakeholders to interrogate the concept of climate apartheid. It will be focused on, but not limited to, putting the realms of law, economy, and culture into dialogue around a set of questions that pertain to the term or concept:  

• What and for whom is ‘climate apartheid’?  
• What does the notion add to existing scholarship on, for example, climate justice, international criminal law, environmental ethics orto narratives on politics and climate?  
• What—if anything—distinguishes it from other concepts concerned with the links between climate and inequality?  
• What kinds of values, normative commitments and/or narrative undergird the concept of ‘climate apartheid’?  
• What kind of relationship can be said to exist between ‘climate apartheid’ and the history and legacies of South African Apartheid?  
• To what extent is ‘climate apartheid’ primarily a material condition, a discursive formation, or geographical imaginary?  
• What legal, economic and cultural processes are said to give rise to ‘climate apartheid’?  
• What are the conceptual limits of ‘climate apartheid’?  
• What institutional implications does 'climate apartheid' have for addressing the ethics of climate finance?  
• Is there value in using ‘climate apartheid’ asa rhetorical device for mobilizing broad political support for climate change? Orwould this usage be counterproductive? 
• What types of obligations mightclimate apartheid help toestablish for urban,nationaland multilateral policy negotiations? 

This conference welcomes contributions from academics from all disciplines with an interest in addressing these and other questions relating to climate apartheid. Whilebbroadly organized around theconceptual pillars of law, economy and culture,the conference is open to all disciplinary, methodological and theoretical orientations.