Wednesday, 27th November 2013
Location:
NIRSA seminar room, Iontas
The Politics of Climate Change,
Seminar by Prof Peadar Kirby.
The 2013 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) alerts us to the destructive impacts of our greenhouse gas emissions on our environment and climate just as the recent Philippines typhoon illustrates the devastating impact on human livelihoods. Yet, globally and nationally, our politics seems unable to face the scale of the challenges presented by the world’s scientists, we are locked into completely inadequate responses.
This seminar surveys the scale of the challenges we face and the nature of responses so far. Taking a political economy approach, it characterises the dominant response as a climate capitalism and assess the extent to which this is able to address the challenges presented by scientists. It goes on to argue for an ecological socialism as the only adequate political economy response to these challenges and interrogates the politics (and social science) that is needed to get us there.
Peadar Kirby is Professor Emeritus Politics and of International Politics and Public Policy in Univerity of Limerick, Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Iceland, Reykjavik and Adjunct Professor, Network of Politics, Power and Society, National University of Ireland, Maynooth.
Wednesday, 27th November, 2:00-3:30pm, NIRSA seminar room, IONTAS 2nd Floor.
All welcome.