Climate Change Discourse and Ethics by Asuncion Lera St.Clair
The paper investigates topics, emphases, frames and absences in the Summary for Policymakers part... more The paper investigates topics, emphases, frames and absences in the Summary for Policymakers parts of the three Working Group reports in the IPCC 5 th Assessment Report and the Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report. It explores similarities and differences by using various tools of lexical and discourse analysis, combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The main results are these: First, each Working Group's Summary reflects not only the Working Group's distinctive mandate but also a distinctive intellectual framing. Second, although there are some significant differences in the emphases given to different themes from the Working Groups, the Synthesis Summary covers the main topics of the three other Summaries, and constitutes a relatively integrated summary of the complete Assessment Report. In addition, third, we find though that the Synthesis Summary centrally follows up the risk framing and language which are prominent in Working Group II but semi-absent in the other Working Groups, as part of constructing a policy-relevant statement from the three distinctive reports. In addition, the Synthesis Summary makes use of linguistic devices which contribute to 'amplify' the strength of statements, as part of transferring messages effectively from the scientific context to a policy-maker audience. Fourth, we find that the style and tone of the IPCC Summaries conduce also to important absences and imbalances in emphasis: main victims of climate change (particular groups of vulnerable people) remain virtually invisible in the Summaries, unlike the impacts in nature and ecological systems or the aggregate economic impacts, and correspondingly the challenges, options and opportunities for action remain relatively underdeveloped in the analysis.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Papers by Asuncion Lera St.Clair
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Climate Change: International Law and Global Governance, 2013
ABSTRACT 1. The increasing importance of law in politics—often referred to as the “judicializatio... more ABSTRACT 1. The increasing importance of law in politics—often referred to as the “judicialization,” “legalization,” or “juridification” of politics, or, more polemically as “juristocracy”—is noted by a number of scholars in relation to wide range of fields and geographical areas. See for example Tate and Vallinder (1995); Ferejohn (2002); Shapiro (2002); Hirshel (2004, 2006); Sieder et al. (2005); Comaroff and Comaroff (2006, 2009, 2011); Gauri and Brinks (2008); Couso et al. (2010); and Yamin and Gloppen (2011). Much of the literature is critical of this development, seeing it as undemocratic takeover of political decision-making by unelected judges and bureaucrats; and fearing that “the haves always come out ahead in court” (to paraphrase Gallanter 1974). Others hold that legal processes also open up space for democratic deliberation, and may enable marginalized voices to be heard and thus potentially provide an institutional avenue for poor and stigmatized groups (see for example Gargarella et al. 2006). 2. The concept of social lawfare was developed by a group of scholars (including the authors) as part of the conceptual foundation for a new collaborative Global Center for Law and Social Transformation. The main focus of the global center is to better understand the effects and impacts (desired and undesired) of social lawfare strategies. The center is coordinated from the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) in Bergen, Norway. For a semiotic analysis of the concept of lawfare, see Tiefenbrun (2011). 3. This use of lawfare, where law is potentially a tool for progressive change that may also be used by poor and marginalized people to advance their causes, differs from, for example, Comaroff and Comaroff (2006), who use “lawfare” to describe authorities use of “the violence inherent in the law” for purposes of dominance and discipline. The concept is also used to describe “negative manipulation of international and national human rights laws” with reference to attempts by NGOs to use of international law to delegitimize Israel. See www.thelawfareproject.org. 4. Unintended negative consequences may take different forms: public interest litigation seeking to reduce urban pollution by moving large industrial emitters out of city centers may take away the livelihood of poor urban dwellers who cannot afford the commute. Litigation for medication and health services may skew resources toward high-cost interventions and potentially away from preventive care and basic services that are essential to the health of poor people (Ferraz 2011). Successful litigation for sexual and reproductive rights (abortion: same sex marriage) may produce a political backlash. Efforts to hold political leaders accountable for human rights abuses (convicting the former Liberian President Charles Taylor in the Special Court for trying war crimes in Sierra Leone; indicting the sitting Sudanese president, Omar Bashir, to the International Criminal Court) could make dictators and warlords cling to power at all cost, making negotiated deals impossible—and “shaming” campaigns to free prisoners of conscience could prompt repressive regimes to kill dissidents instead of imprisoning them. Individual titling of land—recommended by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto as a strategy for development on the reasoning that it enabled use of the property as collateral for credit—has in some cases been found to exacerbate poverty by facilitating permanent sale of property by poor people in situations of need, leaving them without a livelihood. For a discussion of how using the law with the intention to protect vulnerable groups may end up working against them, see also Comaroff and Comaroff (2006, 2009).
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Globalizations, 2011
In this article we argue that questions about responsibility for eradicating poverty may be resta... more In this article we argue that questions about responsibility for eradicating poverty may be restated as ‘who is response-able?’—in other words, ‘who is capable of responding in such a way as to remedy the harm?’; and an important part of the answer is international organizations. Created and maintained by ourselves acting collectively, these organizations play an important role in making
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Globalizations, 2012
ABSTRACT This essay, reflecting on the articles in this special issue and the conference where th... more ABSTRACT This essay, reflecting on the articles in this special issue and the conference where they were originally presented, points to the political transformations that have occurred in Latin America in the last 20 years, particularly in relation to poverty. The emerging new politics is not simply a reaction to neoliberal policies but stems from long-term historical trajectories of marginalization and struggle. Changes in the political landscape include a role for social movements whose political actions have impacted both the conditions and meaning of poverty in the Americas. The authors of this essay note two strands in the analysis of social movements discussed by contributors to this issue: the importance of networks and linkages social movements use to build and operate, and the significance of the scale of social movement actions and organization.El ensayo que se refleja en los artículos de este número especial y en la conferencia donde fue presentado originalmente, apunta a las transformaciones políticas que ocurrieron en Latinoamérica en los últimos veinte años, particularmente en relación a la pobreza. La nueva política emergente no es una simple reacción a las políticas neoliberales, pero surge de trayectorias históricas a largo plazo de marginalización y lucha. Los cambios en el panorama político incluyen una función para los movimientos sociales, cuyas acciones políticas han impactado tanto las condiciones, como el significado de la pobreza en las Américas. Los autores de este ensayo señalan dos corrientes en el análisis de los movimientos sociales discutidos por los contribuidores a esta edición: la importancia de las redes y enlaces que los movimientos sociales realizan para construir y operar y la importancia del grado de las acciones y organización de los movimientos sociales.20 , 20 . , . . . , .
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Global Environmental Change, 2013
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Climate and Development, 2013
ABSTRACT Vulnerability assessments (VAs) are the dominant method to establish who and what is vul... more ABSTRACT Vulnerability assessments (VAs) are the dominant method to establish who and what is vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. Researchers and practitioners typically use VAs to measure material vulnerability in terms of unbalanced sets of assets and institutional vulnerability regarding socially differentiated access to rights and decision-making processes. However, as scholarship on vulnerability and adaptation aligns in a better manner with development and sustainability priorities and focuses more explicitly on interrelations between climate and global change, creative complementary approaches to understanding vulnerability are needed, both conceptually and methodologically. This article discusses the generational shifts of climate change VAs over the last 25 years, their achievements and blind spots. We note declining attention to broad structural and relational drivers of vulnerability and inequality, and an inadequate understanding of vulnerability dynamics which hampers forward-looking change processes. To remedy these blind spots, and based on the reflections on building adaptive capacity coupled with emergent debates on societal transformation, we propose a comprehensive framework for Inequality and Transformation Analyses. The framework, fusing previously fractured approaches, combines assessments of structural and relational drivers of inequalities and marginalization as well as possible solution spaces with reflective and relational opportunities for anticipatory learning and transformative change. It contributes to alternative framings for a more relational research agenda on social-ecological vulnerability and adaptation.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Uploads
Climate Change Discourse and Ethics by Asuncion Lera St.Clair
Papers by Asuncion Lera St.Clair