Abstract

The challenges arising from climate change consequences are likely to impact upon states and other international actors in ways that present new manifestations and dynamics of globalisation. Climate change issues are creating political, economic and social challenges for the international political community, key economic actors, and states, and seem set to alter many dimensions of human social organisation. In the 21st century, climate change is set to create unprecedented global challenges, highlighting inequities and inequalities in functional and material capabilities, and revealing more fully the limits of both domestic and international legal capacities. It is, therefore, timely to engage with some of the international political dimensions of global climate change, including the manner in which it raises new questions regarding the nature of rights and responsibilities and their distribution. There can be little doubt that climate change impacts would be experienced quite differently if the contemporary world was not characterised by global communication and knowledge sharing networks and complex patterns of internationalised trade, production and security. This paper examines the pressing imperatives of responding to climate change consequences by utilising these characteristics of 20th century globalisation to generate new and more effective means of accommodating diverse rights, responsibilities and interests.