Title: Climate change as a global political issue

Authors: Mehdi Abbas

Addresses: EDDEN, BP 47, 38040 Grenoble Cedex 9, France

Abstract: The battle against climate change has placed decarbonised capitalism on the economic, political and social agenda. But the shift towards a regime of accumulation compatible with measures to mitigate climate change raises major issues regarding prosperity and power, on a human and political scale never previously entertained. The paper places climate change in the context of the dynamics of the system which caused that change, namely capitalism. The ecological crisis is one manifestation of the crisis gripping the present regime of accumulation, which has reached a financialised, globalised stage. This being the case, any attempt to halt climate change, far from being an environmental issue, must be seen as a problem for the development model of both North and South.

Keywords: climate change; new growth regime; global political economy; climate-friendly capitalism; decarbonised capitalism; politics; development models.

DOI: 10.1504/AFP.2012.046738

Atoms for Peace: an International Journal, 2012 Vol.3 No.3, pp.219 - 237

Published online: 29 Nov 2014 *