Das Klima in den Nord-Süd-Beziehungen

Abstract

Abstract

The climate within North-South relations.

According to common perceptions, climate change is a global-scale environmental issue that, by virtue of worldwide vulnerability, requires global, resolute and co-operative political action amongst all nation states and civil society alike. However, from a north-south and socio-ecological perspective, the apparently accepted universality of the problem starts to crumble. In this article the authors argue that apart from spatial and time specific interplays between scales of causation and scales of impacts, climate change is better understood as a ‘glocal’ field of conflicts, and a crisis of the ways and modes in which societies regulate their relationships with nature. This line of argumentation is first grounded in an analysis of the multiple inequalities and structural asymmetries that shape north-south and gender relations within climate politics and, therefore, mediate the impacts of climate change. These inequalities are comprised of historical responsibilities, socio-spatial vulnerabilities and discursive and political powers. Secondly, it is shown that international political measures, which have been specifi cally designed to foster adaptive capacity and to promote sustainable development in the South, are mainly serving dominant economic interests in the North and South instead of supporting local struggles for securing livelihoods. Against this background, current political measures for mitigation and adaptation, as well as the impacts of climate change itself, have the potential to perpetuate global and social inequalities rather than alleviate them.