Greening, climatizing, and decarbonizing: an inquiry into the transformation of productive sectors and activities

The new post-COP21 climate regime is ushering in a range of reorientations and transformations of productive activities and economic sectors, based on their place in the global carbon cycle and carbon flows. This introductory article to the special issue on “The Politics of Decarbonization” explores how a focus on the promises of decarbonization observed in various productive sectors can contribute to our understanding of the current transformations of these sectors, their practices, and their production models in the face of climate change. We begin by (I) situating the special issue’s project in relation to the works on greening and ecological modernization published since the 1990s and particularly in relation to the critique of climate capitalism, so as to emphasize the continuities as well as the specificities that a focus on decarbonization policies entails. We then outline (II) the aims of the special issue in relation to the recent literature on climatization: far from seeking to standardize the treatment of the climate issue within a specific social science discipline, we feel it is important to contribute to a multidisciplinary and critical approach to the revival of productivism and the depoliticization of change often associated with decarbonization policies. This issue develops a range of perspectives anchored in different social science fields and disciplines, particularly looking at the forestry, energy, mining, agriculture, research, and bio-economy sectors.