The future is set in stone: on the temporality of emotions in processes of politicization and depoliticization in climate change politics

Critical scholars have increasingly argued that environmental movements and climate actors are operating in a post-political and post-democratic context. The argument holds that in or current political and economic system, technocratic decision-making has come to replace real political conflict. The result is a society unable to imagine radical alternatives to the unsustainable present that hinders necessary change. In this paper, I investigate the promise of re-politicizing environmental and climate discourses using conflicts that exploit a register of emotions. I argue that in we need to pay attention to both how we understand the processes of politicization and depoliticization, as well as to the specificity of different emotions. Politicization is not simply the reverse process of depoliticization, but carries its own distinctive features. Furthermore, not all emotions play the same role in politics, and we need a more theoretically nuanced understanding of the broad palette of emotions available to political actors. In this paper I zoom in the potential role of positive climate emotions (i.e. hope), and negative climate emotions (e.g. fear, sadness and guilt). I develop a theoretical framework in order to provide a critical assessment of the role of emotions in processes of both politicization and depoliticization. I argue that the temporality of climate emotions are central to their politicizing or depoliticizing potential. While hope is commonly assumed contribute to politicization when it is paired with agency by making people able to visualize a desired future and providing them with the possibility of formulating pathways of reaching this goal, hope can also contribute to depoliticization when it is not accompanied with the required agency. Negative climate emotions, such as fear, sadness and anger, can contribute to depoliticization by allowing past conflicts dominate the future, but if they are instead constructed to highlight future potential conflicts and grievances, they can contribute to processes of politicization. The conclusion discusses the balance between the need for stability and radical change, making the arguments in this paper important for anyone who wishes to contribute to a more democratic, political and just green future.