The Road Through Paris: Climate Change, Carbon, and the Political Dynamics of Convergence

Abstract

This article tracks the key events that set the stage for the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21) in Paris, particularly as they relate to politics of convergence. One side of this coming together is an intersection of issues, where new terrestrial and aquatic carbon sequestration programs have blurred the margins of climate change mitigation and resource grabbing. These programs, enclosing forests, farmlands, and oceans, are likewise fused together in what can be described as an emerging ‘carbon complex’ that is part of the wider blue/green economy. On the reverse side, the clear intersection of issues as witnessed by radical, and historically sectoral, agrarian/social justice movements is causing them to intertwine in resistance. The realm of climate change has proven to be an exceptional space of struggle and countermovement building. Political interactions between movements have become increasingly sophisticated—requiring frameworks that address environmental, agrarian, and oceanic issues at once, as the issues have become ever more complex. Agrarian/social justice movements maintain that their agendas for food sovereignty and climate justice hinge upon exposing fault lines in the system and advocate overall system change. COP21 and its parallel side events were together a landmark moment, but part of a much more involved process, ‘the road through Paris’, along which movements had carved out transnational and local spaces of convergence against the backdrop of a global carbon complex.

Keywords:

• climate change
• carbon complex
• resource grabs
• COP21
• agrarian/social justice movements
• convergence

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Jun Borras, Christina Schiavoni, Sofía Monsalve Suárez, and Daniela Andrade for their comments and suggestions. She is also grateful to the Ecofair small grant project for providing the means for her travels to Lima and Paris, as well as the Transnational Institute for supporting her travel to Tunis. Any remaining errors are hers.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For further contextual background on global resource grabs, see Globalizations special issue in Margulis, McKeon, and Borras (2013), and on food sovereignty, see Globalizations special issue in Shattuck, Schiavoni, and VanGelder (2015).

2 Perhaps in a way as such politics of converging streams of social justice movements inherently play out. See for example the critical insights by Brent, Schiavoni, and Alonso-Fradejas (2015) in the context of food movements in the United States.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Salena Tramel

Salena Tramel is a PhD researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague, where her work is centered on the intersections of resource grabs and climate change mitigation, and the intertwining of (trans)national agrarian/social justice movements. In addition to her research at ISS, Salena draws on her global experience with social movements and grassroots organizations to inform her work as a policy and communications consultant and freelance journalist. Prior to joining the academic community at ISS, Salena served as the program coordinator for the Middle East and Haiti at Grassroots International, where she oversaw two key geographical areas while developing pro-poor advocacy strategies at the US/UN levels. She holds an MA in Sustainable Development with concentrations in Policy Analysis and Advocacy and Conflict Transformation from the School for International Training and a BA in Romance Languages from Point Loma Nazarene University. She has language skills in French, Spanish, Arabic, Haitian Creole, and Romanian.