ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the background to the current financial crisis and the problems surrounding policies to combat climate change through transitions out of dependence on carbon. After providing a critique of the current situation the chapter suggests that there are fundamental flaws in the way in which policy has addressed both agency and structure in relation to climate change. It argues for a need to draw away from the path dependence that helped to define mainstream policy initiatives focused on individual consumer behaviour, and argues for a stronger recognition of structural inequalities, internationally and nationally, as the cornerstone of an alternative Green political stance. It suggests that we need to look again at ‘post-carbon’ futures from within the compass of globalisation and its consequences. Globalisation has accelerated the risks of climate change through ushering in new capitalist economies, notably in China and India. It has also appeared to offer new certainties – global economic interdependence and the harnessing of nature for the purposes of economic development – that provide part of the ‘problem’ of climate change itself. These new geopolitical and cultural realities have made it difficult for the critics of globalisation to move much beyond critique. If we have now arrived at a ‘tipping point’ on climate change (IPCC 2007), we need to address the problem of decarbonisation through an approach that goes well beyond market ‘mechanisms’, and requires social and political mobilisation (Redclift, 2010; Sachs 2010). Figure 2.1 illustrates the synergistic relationship between globalised environmental and economic systems, and with policy and practice domains where behavioural shifts may challenge dominant development visions/policy. From Crisis to Opportunity. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203146118/47682463-82d0-451f-8800-e76e7e8683f2/content/fig02_1_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
