Description
The idea of ‘transition’ to a post-carbon future is ubiquitous in ecological politics today. It is an all-encompassing notion that describes and evaluates our present moment and connects it to the future (Fressoz 2022). It is at the core of policies and plans to decarbonise economies and societies before the effects of climate change become irreversible for everyone on the planet (IPCC 2018). However, the universalising claims that support the idea of transition as a common vision for humanity need to be interrogated more closely. This paper argues that fiction as a form of speculative knowledge can have a crucial role in this process and shows how climate novels can help us to think through what the realisation of a post-carbon transition entails, what it leaves out, and what kind of conflicts it could exacerbate. To achieve this, the paper proceeds in two steps. First, it theorises the term ecopolitical imaginary to account for the way imaginaries contribute to provisioning more sustainable, just, and desirable futures and the political process required to achieve these futures (Hatzisavvidou 2023). Second, the paper draws on Robinson’s (2020) The Ministry for the Future as an exemplar of speculative knowledge that can help to visualise the disagreements, stakes, and trade-offs that transition politics entails. By dissecting the ways that the novel makes present key opportunities and challenges for envisioning ecopolitical imaginaries, while omitting others, the paper concludes by discussing the possibilities for a decolonial transition and fictions role in envisioning it.
