Description
The Anthropocene has posed one of the greatest challenges to the contemporary global political economy. An apparent climate coalition has been institutionalised by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and their adaptations by the World Bank’s Environmental and Social Standards and International Finance Corporation’s Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability. However, counter-movements to climate change have also emerged, questioning the persuasiveness of climate-related arguments or seemingly defending the fossil fuel industry (McKie, 2018; Vowles, 2024). Some of this content has been produced and disseminated by the think tanks affiliated to the Atlas Network around the world (Plehwe, 2022).
This paper uses the Gramscian concept of collective organic intellectuals to apply to the Atlas Network which is rooted in the Mont Pelerin Society and its construction of neoliberalism. The paper focuses on the organisational function of the Atlas Network in India where the climate policy-making is pro-environment. Focusing on the two think tanks within the Atlas Network, namely the Center for Civil Society and the Center for Public Policy Research, the paper examines the extent to which the Atlas Network is effective in India in producing climate policy scepticism and/or defending the fossil fuel industry therein.
