Andreas Malm on Overshoot: Climate Politics When It's Too Late

This lecture and Q&A session will discuss emerging strategies for managing so-called overshoot, or the breaching of the 1.5– and quite possibly also 2–degree targets.

Political ruling classes have largely accepted such global warming as fait accompli. So what are we supposed to do when temperatures exceed these critical thresholds? Three potential strategies are on offer: adaptation to cope with the disasters, carbon dioxide removal to bring the CO2 concentrations back down, and solar geo-engineering to shave off the peak of the heat.

This lecture will deal with the illusions, pitfalls, and dangers of all three, but focus on carbon removal and its emerging political economies. The argument will then be critically extended into a discussion of the ethical and practical responsibilities of scholar activism and ways in which academics can mobilise research about social transformation and infrastructural inequalities to help forge a more just world.

Wallerand Bazin will introduce the lecture by Andreas Malm. The lecture will then be followed by a Q&A moderated by Elvina Crowe and Andrew Fowler.