Climate changed urban futures: environmental politics in the anthropocene city

Abstract

In the 30 years since the journal Environmental Politics was founded, we have witnessed a profound shift in how we understand climate from its initial framing as global problem, to one that is increasingly understood as transnational, personal, urban, networked, and regional. Charting the rise of climate change’s urban agenda over the past decade, I suggest we are now witnessing a ‘third wave’ of climate urbanism in which the challenge of addressing climate change is recognised as deeply connected to wider issues of sustainable development and social justice. These shifts are in turn shaped by and giving rise to new developments in terms of the form of climate politics, how it is conducted, and where the battle lines over what it means to act politically under conditions of climate change are being drawn. Recognising that the nature of climate urbanism is continually emergent and highly contested will be critical for future work in this field.