Climate change as a scientific issue is now a widely accepted global challenge. Narratives of climate change are becoming central to development discourse, and increasingly frame understandings of other global challenges, such as poverty and health.

In this project we ask how the new climate change narratives affect approaches and responses to the poor and their rights, particularly as regards their social rights related to resources profoundly affected by climate change impacts such as water and food. We focus our analysis on the international development discourse as well as a concrete country, South Africa, in partnership with scholars who are currently involved in building new knowledge on the issues.

Project proposal: Climate Change Discourse

With this project, we aim to:

• strengthen the competence of Norway as it increasingly becomes a key player on the relations between climate and poverty;
• improve the knowledge base on Norway's bilateral relations with South Africa;
• contribute to a better understanding of the challenges for development aid cooperation to be responsible towards both the environment and the poor;
• build partnerships with South African scholars and generate possible input for similar debates on the continent.

Project document site (project members only)

Project members outside CMI:

Kjersti Fløttum, Prof., Dept of foreign languages, University of Bergen
Jackie Dugard, Ex. Dir., Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI)
Patrick Bond, Dir., Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal

Last update: November 2012