Introduction to the special section on "The colonialities of climate change and action," where authors provide a conceptual mapping to engage critically with existing approaches to thinking and acting in the context of climate change.

Peasant communities in the Intag river valley in Ecuador have been resisting large-scale mining for decades and, thus, have built up a local solidary economy as a livelihood alternative.

Abstract The colonialism inside today’s practices of energy transition becomes evident both from experiences of close listening to participants in grassroots struggles over extractivism and livelihood and from an engaged examination of the histories of energy and transition. In turn, greater awareness of the colonial nature of energy transition can fruitfully feed into movement-building around climate change. One key […]

Abstract The article showcases the nature of climate colonialism by examining the transitions in heirloom seed conservation practices in the context of climate change. Insights for this article are drawn from an action research project implemented among heirloom seed keepers and small-scale farmers in Tamil Nadu, India. Local knowledge systems and indigenous seed conservation practices […]

Abstract Several governmental and nongovernmental institutions in Guatemala have been tasked with tackling the country’s problem of food insecurity. Although food insecurity has a variety of causes, the issue of climate change is beginning to attract initiatives to address the problem. Thus, Guatemalan institutions have begun utilizing climate services (CSs) to provide climate projections (six […]

Abstract Public debates about climate futures increasingly oscillate between the extremes of catastrophism and cruel eco-optimism. While different social imaginaries of climate change are part of sociological debates, to date this specific dynamic has not been extensively explored. By examining recent examples of climate change coverage and analyzing new ideological trends such as “apocalyptic optimism,” […]

Mexico City's municipal "green" bonds (MGBs), issued in 2016 and 2018, financed two water infrastructure projects embedded in the city's hydrosocial cycle (the reciprocal transformation of water and society). The issuance of the MGBs created an entanglement of "green" debt and water circulation, which the city government touted as a successful "green" intervention for climate action. However, this article argues that the MGBs also masked climate injustices and colonial legacies that were already prevalent in Mexico City's water circulation infrastructure, affecting aspects including socio-economic and gender issues. To substantiate this claim, this article adopts climate coloniality and climate justice as analytical lenses and urban political ecology as a methodology to critically examine the "green" label epistemologies and climate action narratives that justify the issuance of MGBs linked to water infrastructure projects.

Abstract This article examines the misrecognition of climate refugees as a form of climate coloniality, through the lens of decolonial environmental justice (EJ). I address two research questions: (1) Why is climate refugeehood a matter of decolonial EJ? (2) How can decolonial EJ contribute to overcoming the colonial impasse that prevents the expansion of the notion of a […]

Abstract Oil and gas corporations and their lobbyists are increasingly appropriating the language of racial justice, anti-imperialism, and decolonization to block climate action and advance a polluting, extractive, and neocolonial agenda. This article argues that these appropriations are a form of propaganda called undermining demagoguery, which serves to subvert the very ideals it claims to […]

Abstract Energy colonialism is an essential, yet scarcely theorized concept for understanding how past, present and future energy systems are shaped by colonial or neocolonial power dynamics, imaginaries, discourses, and practices. These perspectives are important for contemporary debates on energy transition processes, namely with regard to green finance flows, new green geopolitics, and energy governance. […]

Abstract Climate crises and other manifestations of environmental degradation are inextricably linked to the universalizing technoscientific paradigm underpinning capitalist industrialization and modernization. This study aimed to problematize the modern/colonial ontological dualism underpinning environmental crises and advocate the indigenous/Adivasi relational onto-epistemology as a different reality that questions the virtues of science, capitalism, and colonial narrative and […]