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Behind the headlines, a struggle between two opposing philosophical visions has shaped the course of international efforts to save the planet from global warming. The liberal cosmopolitanism of the great Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant has been up against the darker vision of an authoritarian global order of great power rivals developed by Carl Schmitt, 'Crown Jurist of the Third Reich'.
Clive Hamilton shows how the influence of Schmitt's once-taboo ideas has recently spread around the world – in Trump's America, in Xi Jinping's China, and in Europe with the rise of right-wing populism. His book maps how the actions of these three great powers have defined the course of global climate negotiations.
The Kantian vision, best represented by the European Union, has common sense on its side – a threat to everyone that can be solved by collective responses. In practice, however, UN agreements have triggered resistance from surging anti-globalist forces influenced by the Nazi jurist's ideas, a world defined by friends and enemies and where weaker states submit to powerful ones.
As the Earth hurtles towards a hot and perilous future, which of these worldviews prevails, Kant's or Schmitt's, could determine humanity's fate.
1. Defunct philosophers?
2. Kant's beautiful vision
Cosmopolitanism
A league of nations
A digression
Sovereignty and the climate
Atmospheric ethics
Interventions
3. Schmitt and the great powers
Schmitt the Nazi
Volk versus 'humanity'
Against liberalism
Großraum and globalism
Nomos of the earth
Schmitt and the climate
Conspiratorial thinking
4. Europe, land of Kant
The Kantian model
The global climate leader
Neutralization in the EU
The ghost who walks
Visigrád: Schmitt central?
5. United States, in two minds
Contending worldviews
The culture of denial
The global of global warming
Exempting the USA
An American Großraum?
The charismatic leader
Trump's Schmitts
Sex, gender and climate change
6. Schmitt fever in China
Kant out
Schmitt in
Civil society and NGOs
From Großraum to tianxia
Ecological civilization
7. The negotiations from Rio to Copenhagen
From Rio to Kyoto
The Byrd-Hagel resolution
The Kyoto breakthrough
After Kyoto
The Copenhagen debacle
Copenhagen fall-out
8. Trends and influences
China: from defence to offence
Climate colonialism and climate justice
The Russian enigma
The Greta effect
9. From Copenhagen to Paris and after
Realignments
The 2014 US-China agreement
At Le Bourget
Top-down versus bottom up
Legally binding versus sovereign
After Paris
Dubai and the carbon club
10. When Schmitt prevails
A hot world
Adapting
Technofix
Collapse
Description
Behind the headlines, a struggle between two opposing philosophical visions has shaped the course of international efforts to save the planet from global warming. The liberal cosmopolitanism of the great Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant has been up against the darker vision of an authoritarian global order of great power rivals developed by Carl Schmitt, 'Crown Jurist of the Third Reich'.
Clive Hamilton shows how the influence of Schmitt's once-taboo ideas has recently spread around the world – in Trump's America, in Xi Jinping's China, and in Europe with the rise of right-wing populism. His book maps how the actions of these three great powers have defined the course of global climate negotiations.
The Kantian vision, best represented by the European Union, has common sense on its side – a threat to everyone that can be solved by collective responses. In practice, however, UN agreements have triggered resistance from surging anti-globalist forces influenced by the Nazi jurist's ideas, a world defined by friends and enemies and where weaker states submit to powerful ones.
As the Earth hurtles towards a hot and perilous future, which of these worldviews prevails, Kant's or Schmitt's, could determine humanity's fate.
