Introduction
The effects and management of climate change are now integral to most scientific disciplines and public debate. We live in an unprecedented context that intensifies socioeconomic, cultural, and political dynamics, transforming human-nature relationships into a constant journey where ecosystems are merely transit stations for multinational corporations and states, as described by Marc Augé (1993).
The Interplay of Climate Change Narratives and Capitalism
Under the contemporary capitalist dynamics, social cooperation is based on market criteria. This logic of modernity, separated from nature, helps us understand how we perceive the current world and interpret contemporary sociocultural and political events through climate change narratives.
In the past six decades, various climate change narratives have emerged as the severity of climate change became apparent and strategies for its governance were sought.
The public sphere, both nationally and internationally, resonates with the debate on how to act given the consensus on climate change and its devastating consequences, how to mitigate it, and how to adapt to it. A new term, the Anthropocene, has been coined, referring to human activities’ impact on the planet, including climate change. It directly relates to the cause, “anthropos” (ἄνθρωπος), meaning “human being”.
Key Climate Change Narratives
A recent study in climate narrative research has identified three key narratives – ecological apocalypse, green capitalism, and degrowth – whose evolution illustrates how we have narrated climate change, the human role in the Anthropocene, and the scenarios we face as risks and possibilities.
These narratives are dichotomous and binary due to the predominance and influence of green capitalism and degrowth. These movements continuously compete and rival for narrative scenarios, promoting their climate actions through the underlying message they represent.
These narratives have created diverse action frameworks and policy execution models for climate governance.
- Ecological apocalypse foretells an imminent collapse, practically irreversible after decades of urgent warnings about the need for radical policies to address climate change and its effects.
- Green capitalism, emerging in the 1980s, has been linked to overarching narratives such as sustainable development and green economy.
- Degrowth, which also appeared during the same period, has had significant intellectual impact but hasn’t yet transformed into a genuine political alternative, overshadowed by the dominant discourse of progress and economic growth.
Despite the global crisis of 2008 highlighting neoliberalism’s fragility in managing natural resources and the lack of effective strategies to mitigate environmental impact, warnings about overproduction, overexploitation, and climate exceedance were well-known. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated in 2021 that exceeding the 1.5 °C threshold was inevitable. It happened in 2024.
Identifying the diversity of narratives is not merely an academic exercise. It allows us to understand what arguments support political actors’ actions, their practical effects, and ethical implications. For instance, funding programs for developing countries particularly vulnerable to climate change effects may respond to diverse narratives that diagnose and project distinct economic models.
Equal Responsibility Amidst Climate Change?
When discussing anthropogenic climate change effects, it’s essential to ask: “Which human has caused the problem and where?” Do overproduction, overexploitation, or climate exceedance mean the same in Germany as in Algeria? Is a Northern Atlantic state more responsible for these phenomena than a state in the Maghreb region?
Global disparities and historical responsibility in emissions add a level of complexity that the green capitalism narrative doesn’t address holistically.
Based on data, Germany emitted 681.81 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (CO₂eq) in 2023, placing it among the world’s 20 most polluting countries. Meanwhile, Algeria emitted 256.79 Mt CO₂eq the same year.
Therefore, it’s crucial to highlight the problems posed by climate change narratives. We must question the green capitalism approach, which relies on certain sustainable development and green economy conceptions. These perspectives merely transfer the green capitalism problem to other areas and depoliticize climate change by diverting our attention from “how” to manage it to the “green” concept presented in these climate narratives.
Focusing on technical or economic issues avoids addressing the structural underpinnings of contemporary capitalism that contribute to environmental degradation, such as inequality, excessive resource exploitation, and global power dynamics.
Another limitation of degrowth narratives is economic contraction. While it critiques the growth paradigm, it must be linked to global justice principles and historical redress. Although it questions the association between CO₂ emissions and progress and challenges the notion that mass production-generated pollution indicates technological advancement, it’s crucial to consider the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.
This principle, established at the Earth Summit in 1992 and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), highlights the disparity between industrialized countries’ and developing nations’ emissions, evidencing structural inequality in global carbon footprint distribution.
Two Opposing Visions
In this context, “what” and “how” we narrate climate change fundamentally divide into two poles – one promoting green capitalism and the other structurally denying the contemporary exploitation model, i.e., degrowth.
Thus, climate change narratives should be understood as the medium organizing sociocultural and political events, connected by a meaning shaping our world understanding. We must also question to what extent climate change narratives forge the product itself – in what ways and to what extent do the discursive productions of green capitalism or degrowth reflect power struggle characteristics of global capitalist societies.
Beyond this, the challenge lies in attempting to break these polarizing dynamics and represent climate change through other narratives originating from socially and territorially marginalized geographies, showcasing alternative non-hegemonic ways to address climate change.
