Climate Change Politics: Communication and Public Engagement By ...

2010, p. 348). “Put bluntly, climate mainstreaming fits well in the overall project of sustainable development, that is, ‘sustaining capitalism’ in its present condition” (p. 369).

These accounts suggest that despite the unique nature and scale of climate change, the primary responses have been limited to politics as usual and have deepened dominant modes of governing the world. Is this all there is in climate change politics? Where is the political in climate politics? Inspired by the writings of Chantal Mouffe (e.g., 1993/2005, 2000, 2005), we describe the political as engagement with processes of debate and decision making on collective issues in which different values, preferences, and ideals are played out and opposed.¹ Given this definition, climate change communication as described by Swyngedouw (2010), Methmann (2010), and others (Carvalho, 2005a; Paterson & Stripple, 2010) may indeed have evacuated all political dimensions from this ironically political issue.

As much as Swyngedouw’s (2010) and Methmann’s (2010) perspectives do justice to the way many things are run, there are contrasting tendencies in the wider politics of climate change. In fact, activism on climate change has emerged as one of the most prominent forms of citizen-led politics (Endres, Sprain, & Peterson, 2009). In the months and years of the run up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) in December 2009, a large social movement developed around the goal of achieving an ambitious international agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions. It converged in Copenhagen in the form of tens of thousands of demonstrators, a display of public mobilization of historic proportions. The achievements of campaigns such as 350.org (see chapter 6) and Tck tck tck, the World is Ready in organizing hundreds of events all around the world before COP15 are also worth mentioning. The resounding failure of the summit to shape new international policies certainly dampened some of the civic energy around climate change. But civic action extends far beyond occasional street demonstrations. From