Is Global Warming a State-Corporate Crime?

Abstract

This chapter argues that global warming can be analyzed as a form of state-corporate crime. It examines how transnational corporations and the nation states of the global North act in concert in ways that cause widespread environmental and social harm. Corporate and state actors in interaction with each other create these harms by (1) denying that global warming is caused by human activity, (2) blocking efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions, (3) excluding progressive, ecologically just adaptations to climate change from the political arena, and (4) responding to the social conflicts that arise from climate change by transforming themselves into fortress societies. The chapter concludes by arguing that “green criminologists” need to engage in a “public criminology” that communicates the relationship between state-corporate crimes and environmental degradation to audiences beyond their academic peers.