I have a lecture at 15th International Karl Polanyi Conference “The Role of the State in the post-COVID 21st Century” which is organized in collaboration with the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University.
Our panel: Climate Emergency in the Post-Pandemic Era
When: 2:15 PM (8:15 EET), Saturday 24 Apr 2021
URL: https://concordia-ca.zoom.us/j/81026556155
Speakers:
- Michele Cangiani, Università Ca' Foscari, Italy.If Pandemic Is a Symptom, What is the Disease?
- Attila Antal, Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary. The Climate and Ecological Emergency in the Era of State of Exceptions.
- Nadjib Abdelkader, Independent Researcher, France. Can we envisage greater international cooperation, a global Green New Deal, in response to the warnings of the UN IPCC that the world has ten years to avoid the irreversible impact of climate change? Or will governments return to national agendas as countries struggle to rebuild their economies?
- Chair: Gareth Dale, Brunel University, UK
We live in the era of state of exceptions: the climate and ecological emergency, the permanent crisis of global capitalism, migration crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue that the separation of war from politics was a fundamental goal of modern political thought and practice among both liberal and non-liberal political theorists. This consensus is collapsed, and authoritarian populist regimes are interested in introducing the permanent state of exception as it has been elaborated by Giorgio Agamben. Michael Head puts it forward: “The early years of the twenty-first century have seen increasing resort to emergency-type powers or claims of supra-legal executive authority”. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis the rise of emergency power defines our time more than ever. The authoritarian populist regimes understood and applies this state of exception-based form of government. It has been investigated here that the climate and ecological emergency has changed this state of exception-based style of government, because the unprecedent climate and ecological tragedy require us to change our thinking about law and politics. I propose here that the new style of state of exception is induced by anthropogenic clime change and ecological disaster. It has been analysed here how several European municipalities and cities declared politically the climate emergency and what are the main policy and political outcomes of this new instrument In this paper, it has been argued how climate and ecological emergency should be regulated and can be a fundamental new form of state of exception.
