Moral Geographies of Climate Change
Moral Geographies of Climate Change
This chapter explores how local perceptions of climate change intersect with considerations of environmental justice, contrasting moral readings of climate change that differently emphasise ‘universal’, ‘industrial’ and ‘local’ blame. It contrasts Jinja residents’ narratives of self-blame for recent droughts, which linked (local) climate change with local causality, with Nanjing and Sheffield residents’ focus on the global scale of climate change and ‘meta-emitters’ in government and industry. This chapter argues that these moral geographies of climate change affect the extent to which people are willing to assume responsibility for environmental stewardship; much more so than their relative carbon footprint. In posing the question ‘Who is responsible for what?’, it explores divergent moral framings of climate change as a problem for them, there and thenor us, here and now and the possibilities of caring at a distance. This includes attention to the intergenerational challenges of climate change vis-à-vis urban residents’ perspectives on caring for the future and historical responsibility.
Keywords: climate change, environmental justice, intergenerational justice, moral geography, geographies of responsibility
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