For and against climate capitalism

Abstract

This paper starts from the point that our current political‐economic‐climate conjuncture demands new engagements at the dynamic interface of climate capitalism. Using two cases of climate capitalist responses to climate challenges, I demonstrate the reparative potentials that emerge from the tensions and ambiguities that typify that conjuncture. In the first case, I examine financialised climate infrastructure in Jakarta, Indonesia, that promises to protect the city from flooding while enriching city elites, but against which diverse social movements and collectives have organised. The second case is about a cooperative energy provider in Australia, operating on the terrain of a neoliberalised electricity market and climate change, and working towards multifaceted repair by collectivising and redistributing surplus and modelling democratic engagement. Those involved in these vastly different cases both pursue repair and reparations through climate capitalist projects by reckoning with historical and present climate debts while constructing forward‐looking programs. As such, they chart the first steps towards reparative climate futures.

Feeding ourselves and our geographical futures

“…In this first offering of 2024, we also showcase work by Webber (2024), who gave the Fay Gale Memorial Lecture at the 2021 Institute of Australian Geographers' conference before taking a period of parental leave. Entitled "For and against climate capitalism," the article in this issue is a powerful development on that earlier oral presentation.…”