International organisations and the rhetoric of climate change

Abstract

This paper focuses on the policies and rhetoric of international organisations (IOs) dealing with climate change and development. The IOs use economic rhetoric based on the doctrines of neoclassical economics when discussing social, developmental and environmental issues. The paper examines a market-oriented approach and a global public good approach and the politics behind these rhetorical approaches. It refers to the concept of governmentality and proposes that economic doctrines justify the liberal governance model where the authority has spread among global and national actors and in which the role of the sovereign state is weakened. It examines the IOs’ policies in climate change and development issues under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and outside of it by paying attention to the arrangements concerning the Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions. The paper suggests that economic rhetoric replaces other approaches to climate change such as politico-juridical, moral, ethical and environmental approaches, particularly when no global and comprehensive climate arrangement has been established.