Issue № 69. August 2018

Climate Change and Emergency. Towards Redefinition of Emergency Concept

PhD applicant, School of Public Administration, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, the Russian Federation
E-mail: Raphael.boussier@hotmail.com

Climate change and ecological emergencies are widely recognized to be a daunting challenge for modern democracies. But despite the magnitude of the already materializing human and material threats, democratic states are not resorting to emergency rule as they do to fight other emergencies such as terrorism or financial crisis. This paper argues that one of the main reason of democracies’ passivity lies in an obsolete perception of what constitutes an emergency justifying the use of emergency powers. We believe a redefinition of the concept, focusing on processes instead of events, on objective impact assessment and on an extended notion of urgency, is a prerequisite to enhance democratic efficiency in the fight against global emergencies such as climate change.

Keywords

Emergency, emergency decision making, democratic effectiveness, climate change, global emergencies.