Managing Climate Risks or Risking a Managerial Climate

Abstract

Current international climate governance from a risk-political perspective points to a paradoxical moment in world risk society. While the probability of negative climate impacts increases and we can see the emergence of a common risk perception among international decision-makers, nation states in the international climate regime fail to agree on effective preventive measures that could mitigate the harming effects of global warming. While at the discursive level climate change is constructed as one of the major risks in the twenty-first century, the focus in international climate governance remains on voluntary measures and market-based instruments. Drawing on discourse theory, this paradox can be explained as the outcome of a discursive struggle in climate politics. Risk, in this perspective, is a political technology to govern the future that is embedded within broader political rationalities. Until 2007, risk management in climate governance was established as a form of advanced liberal government based on individualisation and self-responsibility. The growing consensus on dangerous climate change ultimately reinforces this advanced liberal risk management by presenting climate change as a ‘naturalised’ de-bounded risk and blurring its socio-economic causes.