The growing Environment and Sustainability list is at the heart of our remit to publish quality scholarship that addresses global social challenges.
This list covers a broad spectrum of issues and focuses on the social justice dimensions of environmental sustainability, including in: climate change, environmental politics, developing sustainable economies, transport and sustainability and environmentalist thought and ideology.
The new open access Global Social Challenges Journal incorporates these themes to facilitate critical thinking across disciplines and fields.
Environment and Sustainability
‘New economics’ discourses – comprising diverse approaches advocated as more just and sustainable replacements of dominant neoclassical and neoliberal economic perspectives – have been criticised as insufficiently coherent to form the ‘discourse coalitions’ necessary to enter the mainstream. To date there has been little systematic exploration of the agreement or divergence in new economics discourses. Here, we conduct a qualitative systematised review of new economics literature in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic to analyse stances towards the economic status quo and the depth of change advocated in it, such as fundamental and systemic transformation or more superficial reformist or accepting types of change that mostly maintain current economic systems. We interpreted authors’ stances towards six key status quo themes: capitalism; neoliberalism; GDP-based economic growth; debt-based money; globalisation; and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In the 525 documents analysed, there was relative consensus that neoliberalism needed transforming, stances towards GDP-based growth substantially diverged (from transformative to reformist/accepting), and stances towards the SDGs were mostly accepting, although the status quo themes tended to be infrequently mentioned overall. Different new economics approaches were associated with diverging stances. We suggest that alignment against neoliberalism and towards the SDGs may provide strategic coalescing points for new economics. Because stances towards core problematised aspects of mainstream economics were often not articulated, we encourage new economics scholars and practitioners to remain explicit, aware and reflexive with regard to the economic status quo, as well as strategic in their approach to seeking economic transformation.
Central to the more-than-human form of biocultural diversity conservation linked to Maya Ixil practising and living tiichajil and its txaa norms is a more-than-human identity that animates agency beyond the human. Drawing these terms and concepts together, the biodiversity conservation models that they create in their application to the land is an everyday performance and interaction of caretaking with and of diversities of life. This article explores the biocultural, spiritual and cosmological relationships of caretaking in the milpa according to one Indigenous knowledge system that manages the land from embodied, multispecies, networks of reciprocity, that are practised in a peopled, bottom-up model, built in equality, for biocultural diversity’s transmission to next generations.
Emphasised in the analysis of data collected from multispecies ethnography with the Maya Ixil, I argue that expression of these embodied and more-than-human Maya Ixil knowledge systems not only ‘decolonises’ the Ixil from historical and globalised systems of oppression, thereby addressing historical inequalities, but that the other-than-human agencies implicit within them demonstrate a model of relationality articulated through local languages and transgenerational and multispecies biocultural expression in the very real local expressions of the global buen vivir, decolonial and rematriation movement. The Maya Ixil demonstrate not only the theoretical plausibility of forms of community beyond globalised anthropocentric society rooted in colonial structures of inequality, but that the living networks that tiichajil speaks to and txaa guides the human right relation within, provide an alternative model for human behaviour to preserve biodiversity from food systems generating food sovereignties.
Drawing on a methodological approach that involved visual ethnography and combined content and narrative analysis, my research aims to analyse the role that emotions play in the territorial–ontological conflict between British Columbia provincial government, Coastal GasLink and the Wet’suwet’en. Using high-quality online audiovisual material produced by the Wet’suwet’en – allowing a critical perspective throughout the article on the politics of self-representation – I was able to get into the conflict with a phenomenological approach, employing my senses to analyse body movements, tone of voice and language. Theoretically, I articulate a framework made up of Ingold’s phenomenology, Blaser’s ontological conflicts and Escobar’s studies of culture. Then, I build on the spiderweb, a metaphor developed by Ingold, to expand the scope of González-Hidalgo’s emotional political ecologies. The results show that Coastal GasLink, taking culture ‘as a symbolic structure’, proposes as a central mitigation strategy, through their environmental impact assessment, what I call ‘an ontological interruption’ of the Yintakh. Besides, I demonstrate that the processes of political inter-subjectivation sought at the Unist’ot’en Healing Centre help understand the worry, frustration and stress of the Wet’suwet’en facing the world-creating practices of Coastal GasLink. On the other hand, the Healing Centre also reveals how the affections for the other-than-human and their spiderweb (Yintakh or relational world) inform Wet’suwet’en resistance. Lastly, I unveil how Coastal GasLink and the Ministry of Aboriginal Rights, through practices of inclusion and gender equality, seek to blur radical cultural differences, delegitimise the Wet’suwet’en precolonial governance system, and create affections for the Western-modern world.
Drawing on and responding to the articles in this special collection, this provocation makes the case that realising justice in education requires a focus on the processes and politics of justice-oriented reform in postcolonial, low- and middle-income counties (LMICs). In implementing reform, it is argued that it is crucial to take account of similarities and differences in context between LMICs. At the heart of reform must be a holistic, coherent and systemic approach at the level of the education system of the institution. Key priorities include reforming the curriculum, investing in educators as agents of change and developing endogenous system leadership that can drive justice-oriented reform. Here, however, it is necessary to engage with the politics of justice-oriented reform, including challenging global, neoliberal agendas, democratising the governance of education and engaging with popular struggles for social, epistemic, transitional and environmental justice.
As the study of climate change litigation continues to emerge as a scholarly field, the conversation about the characteristics of litigation in Global South countries is still nascent. The meaning and identity of climate litigation, and the scholarly response to it, are mostly shaped around the priorities and pressures of Global North countries. But why does pursuing, and asserting, an African identity of climate litigation matter? The answer to this question lies in an understanding of what it means to pursue a ‘global’ endeavour, but also in an understanding of the dignity of African scholars, practitioners and activists in the face of the climate crisis.
This book spans a range of approaches and jurisdictions and aims to make a relevant yet lasting volume of reflective contributions both in relation to transnational, regional and local climate litigation scholarship, but also to our understanding of the plural nature of climate justice and climate governance. This chapter introduces the authors and the main themes of the book.
In Nigeria, many citizens are quite vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change. This has been exacerbated by a plethora of factors not limited to poverty, the activities of multinational oil and gas companies and endemic environmental injustice issues in many parts of the country, especially the Niger Delta region (wherein the oil and gas industry is located). The impacts of climate change will have negative consequences on Nigerians (especially in the Niger Delta).
This chapter relies on climate justice as its analytical lens. Climate justice initiatives can be used to improve access to justice and protect climate change victims in Nigeria. The chapter also highlights some of the recent reforms or initiatives by the Nigerian government in improving climate justice in the country. This chapter discusses the potential of climate change litigation in Nigeria as one of the strategies that can be used in ventilating climate justice issues in the country. In concluding, this chapter proffers some recommendations on how climate litigation can help to protect the victims of climate change in Nigeria.
Climate change displacement litigation within the context of human rights and refugee law is severely lacking on the African continent. This chapter points to a gap in the current regional legal architecture for affording long lasting and enduring – or even temporary – legal safeguards to those individuals and communities affected by environmental or climate change-induced displacement and migration. There is an increasing need to formulate mechanisms and systems that can bridge this protection gap, particularly as climate displacement and migration is and will continue to affect the entire the Africa region. The chapter argues that this can be achieved through the adoption of universally applicable human rights standards, and a human rights-based approach that takes into account and recognizes environmental or climate change-induced migration and forced human displacement as a legitimate basis for extending refugee law-based protections to the affected individuals. The chapter concludes that the African region needs to develop and extend the reach of refugee law using human rights-based approaches in order to make effective climate change displacement strategic litigation.
Climate change litigation is growing around the world in general and in common law African countries in particular, but there is no ‘trend’ of climate cases in civil law African countries. This chapter presents the causes that limit the development of climate change litigation in civil law African countries – but it also highlights the civil society organizations that aim to further climate justice.
The chapter focuses on Cameroon in the Congo Basin. It shows the legal obstacles that prevent the development of climate litigation and the potentialities that exist. From the research it appears that access to justice is restricted in Cameroon, as standing is conditional and so only some legal entities can bring environmental cases. However, civil society organizations are doing important work on the ground to protect the environment and contribute to climate justice through advocacy and monitoring of natural resources management. Even though climate litigation could be brought by entities like decentralized public collectives, the monitoring and advocacy work done by civil society organizations to enhance climate justice in Cameroon should not be overlooked.
EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
In recent years, climate litigation has become an important subject of global scholarly and policy interest. However, developments within the Global South, particularly in Africa, have been largely neglected.
This volume brings together an international team of contributors to provide a much-needed examination of climate litigation in Africa. The book outlines how climate litigation in Africa is distinct as well as pinpointing where it connects with the global conversation. Chapters engage with crucial themes such as human rights approaches to climate governance, corporate liability and the role of gender in climate litigation.
Spanning a range of approaches and jurisdictions, the book challenges universal concepts around climate and the role of activism (including litigation) in seeking to advance climate governance.
This chapter explores climate change cases from South Africa and Nigeria through a legal opportunity structures (LOS) lens. Understanding the effects of LOS is critical for sustaining climate litigation momentum across countries. Further, the academic literature on climate litigation hardly covers gender issues, even though women’s vulnerability to adverse climate change impacts and limited access to resources for adaptation are widely acknowledged. The receptivity of the existing LOS to women’s unique experiences affects their ability to engage in climate litigation and prospects for accessing climate justice through the courts. The chapter, therefore, undertakes a gender-sensitive analysis of the relevant literature, laws and decisions of courts from South Africa and Nigeria to conceptualize the LOS for climate litigation.
