Whose environment?: the end of nature, climate change and the process of post-politicization

the paper explores how the elevation of the environmental question, in particular the problem of climate change, to a global and consensually established public concern is both a marker of and constituent force in the production of de-politicization. the paper has four parts. first, i problematize the question of nature and the environment. second, the case of climate change policy is presented as cause célèbre of de-politicization. the third part relates this argument to the views of political theorists who argue that the political constitution of western democracies is increasingly marked by the consolidation of post-political and post-democratic arrangements. fourth, i discuss the climate change consensus in light of the post-political thesis. i conclude that the matter of the environment and climate change in particular, needs to be displaced onto the terrain of the properly political.