Featured Roundtable: The role of temporality in climate change activism

Abstract

Time has become a key reference point for measuring the success, failure, and progress of climate action. Yet, there is little reflection about how time is constructed in these targets, by whom, for what purpose, and to what effect. While the academic debate about time in energy and climate studies reflects the broad nature of techno-economic and socio-institutional analyses, we argue that temporal dynamics are not only tied to questions of technological choices and scientific knowledge-making but also broader social and political change. In this roundtable, we outline how we can engage with the contested nature of time and temporality in climate change activism. The discussion starts from the observation that the climate change movement is distinct from most other social movements by the temporality of its main concern: climate change will have irreversible consequences that will become inevitable as soon as certain tipping points are crossed. This temporality makes urgency one of the main driving forces behind and challenges for the climate movement. Yet while this urgency is undoubtedly related to the effects of ‘basic physics, ’we should also see the temporality and implied urgency of climate change as a social construct that can be challenged. This roundtable brings together reflections on how we can understand today’s climate activism as essentially linked to, and driven by, a socially constructed sense of urgency. The themes covered focus on the links between questions about temporality and the imagined futures in climate activism (1), the identification of meaningful goals based on these scenarios (2), the politics behind time-making (3), and the development of strategies to turn those imaginaries, goals, and politics into concrete action (4). While these themes are intertwined, each will be addressed, particularly by one of the four contributors to this panel. The plenary discussion seeks to connect them.