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ABSTRACT
The failure of states to take the necessary actions to prevent global temperatures from soaring may be interpreted as more than an act of environmental negligence. In terms of a knowing imposition of harm, it also represents an act of domination. That is, a deliberate denial of rights to a safe, democratic, and sustainable future. This paper notes the role played by institutional power in preserving this system of domination and in shaping the discursive spaces in which carbon energy options continue to be vigorously defended even in the face of mounting evidence of their danger. Yet as signs of eco-distress grow stronger, so too does a questioning of the legitimacy of this power order. This paper examines how youth employ ‘communicative power’, as the product of a common will formed in non-coercive communication, to counter this domination and reinterpret climate change as the product of dysfunctional decision-making and ‘abnormal’ justice relations between generations. It notes the significance of these actors’ mobilization efforts to societal processes of learning about democracy's better potentialities and capacities to transform society from within (via law).
Acknowledgements
I would like to extend sincere thanks to two anonymous reviewers of this article and the Associate Editor for their invaluable input and guidance in reshaping the article's main arguments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 According to the United Nations Environment Programme-hosted International Resource Panel (Citation2016), the amount of ‘primary resources’ extracted from the Earth in the last four decades has tripled, with the richest countries consuming, on average, ten times the amount consumed by poorer countries. All indications are this figure will continue to rise steadily in the years ahead as the demand for fossil fuels, wood, metals, minerals, fishery, etc. grows (World Resource Forum Citation2019).
2 See OECD Green Growth Studies – Energy (Citation2011, 3).
3 As Parfit (Citation2010, 120) argues,
the Person Affecting Principle (PAP) draws a distinction where in our view, no distinction should be drawn. We may thus conclude that this part of morality, the part concerned with human welfare, cannot be explained in person-affecting terms. Its fundamental principle will not be concerned with whether acts will be good or bad for those people whom they affect. If this is so, many moral theories need to be revised.
4 Globally, subsidies of fossil fuels stood at $5.2 trillion (6.5 percent of GDP) in 2017. The largest subsidizers are China ($1.4 trillion), the United States ($649 billion), Russia ($551 billion) and the European Union ($289 billion) (IMF Working Paper No. 19/89, 2019).
5 The recommendations of expert bodies, such as those of the Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change (Citation2015, 1883), are that coal be immediately phased out of the global energy mix in the interests of long-term health and wellbeing.
6 See, for example, Greta Thunberg, speaking at the UN Climate Action Summit in September 2019, who accused world leaders of having ‘stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words’ and promises of climate change mitigation.
7 Figures produced by the Energy Information Administration (EIA), see National Geographic (Citation2019).
8 For further discussion see Skillington (Citation2019, 33–35).
9 No state peoples willingly integrate polluted or exhausted resource reserves into their collective life plan or see such resource conditions as key to their collective cultural identity. Equally, exhausting precious resource reserves does not serve the long-term interests of citizens (including future generations referenced in most state constitutions) and, therefore, cannot be said to serve an end of justice grounded in the common good.
10 While all regions eventually will experience the physical effects of deteriorating climate conditions, poorer countries who have contributed least to this problem will suffer its effects the most. Developed countries, with larger, more diversified economies, who historically accumulated their wealth through fossil fuels, will fare better (see Oxfam Ireland Citation2018).
11 In The Logic of Practice (Citation1992, 110), Bourdieu explains how doxa signals a shared commitment to the ‘presuppositions’ of ‘the game’ (ibid., 66), but, ultimately, doxa is ‘an act of misrecognition, implying the most absolute form of recognition of the [established] social order’ (Bourdieu Citation1984, 471). In Pascalian Meditations (Citation2000, 130–131), Bourdieu further clarifies how doxa defines the socially dominated nature of the natural attitude, the sense of knowing one's place in the world or the order of things.
12 The reference to the Preamble of the U.S Constitution (1789) was made by sixteen youths who filed a petition against Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany & Turkey for their failure to control ‘internal and cross-border contributions to climate change’ and violating the rights of children, under Article 5 of the Third Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to the Committee on the Rights of the Child in September 2019.
13 See Brown-Weiss (Citation1989, 2); UNESCO Declaration on the Responsibilities of Present Generations Towards Future Generations (Citation1997, Article 2).
14 Home to 1.9 billion children, or 85 percent of the world's current youth population, developing regions experience a disproportionate share of the extreme weather conditions attributable to climate change. Children in these regions suffer heavily from heat stress, drought, crop failure and famine as climate conditions continue to deteriorate (see UNICEF Citation2015, 1, 6, 61), and the risk of climate-linked diseases increases. Rising average temperatures pose a major threat to the health of children on account of their underdeveloped thermoregulatory systems and smaller airways, which make them particularly susceptible to respiratory diseases (Xu et al. Citation2014). In the urban centers of more developed regions also, the incidence of asthma in children is rising steadily as emissions of nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, as well as ozone concentrations in the atmosphere grow (Sheffield et al. Citation2011). Worldwide, 11–14 percent of children aged 5 years and older present asthma symptoms. An estimated 44 percent of these cases are linked to environmental problems, including air pollution, secondhand smoke and indoor pollution (see WHO Citation2017). Beyond the immediate effects of increased particulate matter on the essential organs of the child, exposure to higher levels of ozone in the long term is also expected to increase the risk of early onset heart disease, stroke and cancer.
15 See, for instance, US President Trump's recent comments on climate youth activist, Greta Thunberg, Time, December 30, 2019.
16 See, for example, Article 6[a] of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 1992 and Article 12 of the Paris Agreement 2015, as well as their legal right to be heard (e.g. Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989).
17 The Global Coordination Group of the youth-led climate strike. Letter to world leaders (March 1, Citation2019). Printed in The Guardian. See https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/01/youth-climate-change-strikers-open-letter-to-world-leaders (accessed May 9, 2020).
18 Sinnok, one of the 16 plaintiffs accused the state of ‘putting the short-term interests of the oil and gas industry above those of Alaskan youths’ future’ (quoted in Wright, November 2017).
19 Research documenting these effects has become more commonplace in recent years. For instance, Bourque and Willox (Citation2014) work examines the emotional effects of extreme weather events and displacement, noting a high rate of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorders amongst child victims. Similarly, Doherty and Clayton (2011, 268–72) document a decline in the emotional wellbeing of children who are exposed to prolonged heat, drought, food and water scarcity. Growing physical evidence of the destruction of ecosystems, rivers, and wildlife triggers forms of psychological and emotional distress not officially recognized before now (see Albrecht et al. Citation2007; also Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Citation2015, 1877; Kenyon Citation2015, 2). Albrecht and colleagues group these symptoms under the general heading of ‘solastalgia’ explaining how they arise when our ‘endemic sense of place is violated’ by the pollution of land, rivers and seas, causing human distress levels to increase. Also referred to as ‘ecosystem distress’ or ‘ecological grief’, solastalgia is exacerbated by a perceived sense of powerlessness to prevent unfolding disasters from occurring (see Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Citation2015). Recent research conducted by UNICEF (Citation2013) revealed high levels of climate-related anxiety amongst 11–16-year-olds interviewed (75 percent). Young respondents expressed worry about the affects of climate change on their future, and frustration with government's poor performance in tackling these issues.
20 See, for instance, Norwegian Government v. Youth and Nature, Greenpeace Norway, October 18, 2016; complaint by Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana, Xiuhtezcatl Tonatiuh M. Et Al. v. United States, Barack Obama et al., No. 6:15-cv-01517-TC, August 2015; Dejusticia v. the Colombian Government, STC4360-2018, April 2018.
21 It is important to note that not all legal courts have proven to be equally open to new formulations of the participatory, human, or environmental rights of children and future generations. What is explored here is a sample of those who have taken a more supportive stance and those deemed to be landmark cases in establishing new legal precedents.
22 See, for example, Communication to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, 23 September 2019, The climate crisis is already here and harming children, 14–18; Emotional distress linked to present and future impacts, 43–45. Also, under the public trust doctrine, no government can legitimately relinquish its obligations to protect resources held in trust without simultaneously diminishing the power of future legislatures to promote the welfare of the people. Resources vital to the flourishing of future generations are threatened by climate change. The failure of current government to protect the climate system is, therefore, a violation of the doctrine of public trust.
23 See, for example, the Superior Court of the State of Washington, December 2016; the Hague District Court, Urgenda Foundation v. the Kingdom of the Netherlands, June 2015; the Dutch Supreme Court, Urgenda Foundation v. the Kingdom of the Netherlands, December 2019.
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Tracey Skillington
Tracey Skillington is Director of the BA Sociology at the Department of Sociology & Criminology, University College Cork. Recent publications include Climate Justice & Human Rights (2017), Climate Change and Intergenerational Justice (Routledge) and A Critical Theory of Societal Trauma (Routledge, forthcoming). She has also published in journals such as the British Journal of Sociology, European Journal of Social Theory and Sociology.