ABSTRACT
The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2007) identifi es Africa as one of the continents of the world most vulnerable to climate change. Africa’s vulnerability to climate change is aggravated by the interaction of multiple stresses such as poverty, poor governance, and weak institutions, limited access to capital (including technology), ecosystem degradation, confl ict and disasters (UNEP 2006), and a generally poor quality of education (UNESCO 2004). The climate injustices and exacerbating circumstances experienced by poor and weak states today lie in the long-term historical emergence of a modern (and increasingly global) world order framed by a hegemonic Westphalian state system. This state system privileges exclusive, undivided sovereignty over a bounded territory (Fraser 2008), and is known more popularly as the ‘nation state’ system.
