Workshop: Environmental Politics in an Age of Insecurity

Outline

Contemporary public discussion and world events have been defined by a strong sense of insecurity. Scholars have discussed an ongoing global ‘polycrisis’ and recent years have seen the highest number of armed conflicts for decades, including high profile wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Under President Donald Trump, the United States has upended many longstanding assumptions about geopolitics. President Trump has substantially reorientated the United States’ approach to climate change and the environment, dismantling domestic policies in this area and withdrawing from international commitments.

Tensions over immigration are increasingly prominent in many political systems and discourses around the world, and climate change and environmental challenges are contributing to flows of migration. Meanwhile, many nations are securitising activism and criminalising the right to peaceful protest over the ecological crisis.

In this context, the PSA Environment Group is organising a one-day workshop on global (in)security, geopolitics and the environment. This will include exploring the following set of indicative questions:

-Is there still a meaningful role for multilateral climate change (and broader environmental) negotiations?

-In what ways are broader geopolitical shifts impacting national governments’ approaches to environmental policy?

-How are disputes over access to natural resources impacting the transition to renewable energy? Who bears the socio-ecological costs of ‘green’ transitions?

-To what extent is climate change exacerbating political tensions over migration? And how is climate changed used in these debates?

-How are environmental movements responding to the mounting criminalisation of protest activities?

Keynote session by Prof Matthew Paterson (University of Manchester) - Matthew is a distinguished Professor of global climate politics and the Director of the Sustainable Consumption Institute at the University of Manchester

Speakers and programme to follow.

This is a hybrid event. Please register on this page if you would like to attend either in-person or virtually.