Towards climate resilient peace: an intersectional and degrowth approach

Abstract

How can peace be climate resilient? How can peace and environmental sustainability be advanced simultaneously? To address these questions, I develop a new conceptual and theoretical framework for climate resilient peace through degrowth. This paper calls for stronger consideration of positive conceptualizations of peace and of intersectionality and degrowth in pursuit of peace and resilience. Not only does climate change make planetary limitations more salient, but it also highlights rising inequalities. In light of this, peace necessitates transforming societal power structures that are both driving climate change and influencing people’s experiences of climate impacts. Addressing imbalanced power structures then is key to understanding and fostering climate resilient peace. This paper conceptualizes climate resilient peace based on an intersectional understanding of positive peace, highlighting that peace depends on the negation of structural violence experienced at the intersection of political and social identities. In relation to this, I argue that a process of climate resilient peace must address underlying power structures influencing people’s experience of climate harms, and driving climate change so as to mitigate further damage. This paper demonstrates such a process through degrowth, wherein growth is no longer the central economic goal, exemplifying social and ecological means for disrupting structural violence within climate limitations. I discuss and give examples of three key degrowth processes—redistribution, reprioritized care economies, and global equity—as opportunities to foster peace in a changing climate. This framework, thus, contributes a new approach to climate resilient peace that addresses challenges of both social and environmental sustainability.

Positive peace and environmental sustainability: Local evidence from Afghanistan and Nepal

“…Johnson et al (2021) reviewed empirical studies on natural resource management and intrastate peacebuilding and found that political inclusion, equity, and livelihoods can provide the conditions for achieving positive peace outcomes. Another study anchored on positive peace is Nicoson’s (2021) theorization on how peace can be aligned with degrowth processes of redistribution, reprioritized care economies, and global equity to address social and economic structural issues driving climate change and exacerbating climate impacts. In a country-level study, Fisher et al (2021) presented a composite index of peace, environment, and sustainability and found that countries with cooperation-enabling institutions are more likely to provide basic human needs, promote individual freedoms, and address generational equity while meeting economic, political, social, and environmental sustainability goals.…”

Review: Climate change resilience disconnect in rural communities in coastal Kenya. A rhetoric communication discord proliferated by COVID-19 pandemic

“…This diversity includes complex systems of knowledge and inhabitation, developed over many generations of coevolution with environmental change (Comberti et al, 2019). This is what is referred to as traditional ecological knowledge (TEK), also referred to as indigenous peoples' knowledge (IPK) in line with the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, deeply rooted in cultural traditions and lifeways, developing relevant climate change adaptation strategies (Nicoson, 2021).…”

Co-Benefits Through Coordination of Climate Action and Peacebuilding: A System Dynamics Model

“…Recent studies highlight that better coordination between climate action and peacebuilding can generate significant social and environmental "co-benefits" (Bain et al, 2016;De Coning et al, 2021;Ürge-Vorsatz et al, 2014). However, there remains a need for further examination of the conceptual entry points for enabling joint climate action and peacebuilding as well as the potential social and environmental co-benefits that can emerge from such coordination (Amadei, 2021;Nicoson, 2021;Sharifi et al, 2021).…”