Climate Justice after Copenhagen, or: “It’s the energy, stuped!”
by Tadzio Müller

Copenhagen was a bit of everything. From the perspective of the UN climate negotiations, it was an abject failure. From the perspective of the Danish police, it was a resounding success. And from the perspective of the climate justice movement, it was... something in between. What we lacked in successful agenda setting, we made up for in creating new connections and alliances that will be at the heart of the future struggle for global climate justice. But where will this struggle be fought, and what form will it take?

The answer to the first question is: in the energy sector. It is in the fossilistic, capitalist energy sector that the climate crisis is primarily produced, and where we need to fight it first and foremost: we need to prevent the construction of the many new coal-fired power plants that are being planned and built in Europe and throughout the world; prevent the so-called ‘renaissance of nuclear energy’; and fight for a just, socialised and decentralised energy sector.

This struggle will of course take place on many levels, and take many forms. But after Copenhagen, the question of civil disobedience stands out: while the failure of the COP highlights ever more clearly the need for collective rule-breaking, the very space for this necessary activity is shrinking fast. How to keep open the space for disobedient action, how to expand it, and how to act within it will be one of the central questions that the climate justice movement will need to answer.

Tadzio Müller lives in Berlin, where he is active in the emerging climate justice movement. Having escaped the clutches of (academic) wage labour, he is currently writing a report on ‘green capitalism’ for the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. He is also an editor of Turbulence-Ideas for Movement.