Description
In a 2019 article—following the 2018 IPCC report on 1.5°C—I argued that the discipline of International Relations should focus more on the challenges of climate change (‘Climate Science, the politics of climate change and futures of IR’). Seizing the opportunity of this conference’s theme, and in the specific context of Michael Hulme’s latest book, Climate Change Isn’t Everything, this paper returns to that argument. In the wake of anti-scientist populism in the UK and US (2015-2019) and the move away from ‘state-centrism’ in contemporary International Studies, the paper argued that International Relations should: 1) ‘follow the climate science’ and partly organize its knowledge production in light of the remaining carbon budget (at the time over 500GtC02); and 2) focus – among other, non-state actors – on the developed state and its urgent responsibilities regarding comprehensive climate mitigation and adaptation strategies (those of developing states as well as its own). In Climate Change Isn’t Everything Hulme argues against this kind of ‘climatism’—the alignment of knowledge with climate science-based ‘ticking-clocks’--, suggesting that different framings are needed to elicit more inclusive, less ‘fearful’ kinds of political action (represented for example by the Sustainable Development Goals framework). Despite the large interest of Hulme’s thesis for International Studies, I argue that focus on thresholds is the only way in which political motivation and organisation for collective climate action can take place and that comprehensive state strategies remain necessary leverage for international cooperation around the energy transition and equity. This specific argument implies more widely that International Studies as a whole still needs to address the climate crisis appropriately.
