CARBON COLONIALISM OR CLIMATE JUSTICE? INTERROGATING THE INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE REGIME FROM A TWAIL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

This article provides a TWAIL critique of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [UNFCCC] in the aftermath of the 21st Conference of the Parties in Paris in December 2015. It engages with criticisms from the social and climate justice movement that the UNFCCC is promoting forms of “carbon colonialism” or “CO2lonialism” through its support for and establishment of international carbon trading and offsetting strategies. It proposes that using a jurisdictional approach to examine how the authority of the UNFCCC is authorized can provide key analytical tools to understand the regime. The article examines the way in which the regime is authorized by an invocation of “common concern” even as it promotes policies that marginalize the interests of those already most vulnerable to climate change. It concludes by suggesting that climate justice movements already are building different forms of commonality and that these alternative commonalties represent important new ways of thinking about global action on climate change.