Locating Capital in ‘Anthropocene’ International Relations: Some Explorations

The framing of the proposed new geological epoch as Anthropocene, while reflecting the scientific understanding that the Earth system has markedly undergone significant changes due to the influence of human activities, has also led to critical debates within some scholarly circles if such a formulation, which some argue as suggesting an undifferentiated ‘Anthropos’ or humanity as a whole being responsible for the ecological crisis that characterizes this new epoch, serves to ignore the role of capital in leading to this epoch. Thus, some of them propose an alternative formulation, ‘Capitalocene’, for this new epoch. This article takes up international diplomacy on environmental issues as a case to understand what insights may be derived when international relations as a field in general, and environmental diplomacy and politics in particular, are seen through the contours of this Anthropocene–Capitalocene debate. Through an instrumental application and drawing some parallels from that debate for the limited purpose of an analytical experiment, this article, after highlighting the constitutive role of capital—and the global order that serves its interests—in giving rise to the many environmental crises of contemporary times, argues that a key reason for the failure of international diplomacy on environmental issues in mounting an effective response, is their foundational arrangement being wilfully oblivious to the structures of global capitalism and imperialism within which they operate and are incapable of confronting. Thus, it is contended that, without a structural rupture, strategies for addressing environmental problems through international cooperation would be ineffective—or worse, counterproductive—and the ecological crisis would continue to worsen.