Climate Urbanism and the Implications for Climate Apartheid

This chapter examines the concept of climate urbanism as a response to climate change that is dominated by the financialization and prioritization of major physical and digital infrastructure projects, securitization, and carbon control. In its current mode, the policy paradigm of climate urbanism advances a technocratic, neoliberal approach to development. Situated within the oppressive structures of racial capitalism, heteropatriarchy, and coloniality, this mode of climate urbanism contains significant potential to create a system of climate apartheid. We acknowledge, however, that the dominant trajectory of climate urbanism is not predetermined. Alternative visions of climate urbanism are emerging that explore, imagine, and advance more just and democratic futures. As activists and scholars engage a more heterogeneous and resistant mode of climate urbanism, we see the potential for an emergent form of climate justice.