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<p>This paper presents a critical political analysis of the&#xa0;institutional climate governance complex centered on the UNFCCC, its carbon market mechanisms (Article 6), and its associated climate finance architecture, arguing that this dominant regime functions not as a genuine response to ecological crisis but as an instrument for extending neoliberal governance and imperial management under a green banner. I position this paper&#xa0;within critiques of “climate colonialism,” tracing the political origins of the climate-emergency narrative to the Thatcher era, where it was mobilized to undermine labor and legitimize technocratic capitalism. The paper distinguishes carefully between intentional political strategy and structural outcomes, arguing that regardless of intent, the climate narrative has performed&#xa0;a crucial function of misdirection, diverting political energy from demands for economic redistribution to consumer-focused and market-based solutions. It further examines the emergent regime of “Green Capitalism 2.0,” characterized by green extractivism, financial dependency through climate debt, and the militarization of environmental policy. Through a novel comparative analysis with the War on Terror in Afghanistan, the paper develops the concept of extractive stabilization—a mode of imperial-crisis management that declares a global emergency to legitimize interventions which, in practice, stabilize core-periphery hierarchies, outsource costs, and facilitate upward resource transfers while perpetually deferring systemic resolution.&#xa0;The paper provides explicit-scope conditions for this concept and differentiates it from adjacent frameworks including accumulation by dispossession, climate colonialism, and securitization.&#xa0;The analysis reveals the climate regime as a form of adaptive hegemony, successfully delaying a post-growth reckoning in core economies at the expense of the Global South. Ultimately, the paper frames mainstream-climate politics as a form of climate colonialism that deepens global inequality. It concludes by outlining a radical-democratic alternative, analytically grounded in the four dimensions of extractive stabilization, centered on epistemic justice, the redistribution of power, and the abolition of elite rule, arguing that genuine-ecological futures require a dismantling of the logic of rulership itself.</p>

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Climate Colonialism: The Political Economy of Global Warming as a Mechanism of Neoliberal Hegemony and Extractive Stabilization

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年6月23日

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  • Alberto Boretti

摘要

This paper presents a critical political analysis of the institutional climate governance complex centered on the UNFCCC, its carbon market mechanisms (Article 6), and its associated climate finance architecture, arguing that this dominant regime functions not as a genuine response to ecological crisis but as an instrument for extending neoliberal governance and imperial management under a green banner. I position this paper within critiques of “climate colonialism,” tracing the political origins of the climate-emergency narrative to the Thatcher era, where it was mobilized to undermine labor and legitimize technocratic capitalism. The paper distinguishes carefully between intentional political strategy and structural outcomes, arguing that regardless of intent, the climate narrative has performed a crucial function of misdirection, diverting political energy from demands for economic redistribution to consumer-focused and market-based solutions. It further examines the emergent regime of “Green Capitalism 2.0,” characterized by green extractivism, financial dependency through climate debt, and the militarization of environmental policy. Through a novel comparative analysis with the War on Terror in Afghanistan, the paper develops the concept of extractive stabilization—a mode of imperial-crisis management that declares a global emergency to legitimize interventions which, in practice, stabilize core-periphery hierarchies, outsource costs, and facilitate upward resource transfers while perpetually deferring systemic resolution. The paper provides explicit-scope conditions for this concept and differentiates it from adjacent frameworks including accumulation by dispossession, climate colonialism, and securitization. The analysis reveals the climate regime as a form of adaptive hegemony, successfully delaying a post-growth reckoning in core economies at the expense of the Global South. Ultimately, the paper frames mainstream-climate politics as a form of climate colonialism that deepens global inequality. It concludes by outlining a radical-democratic alternative, analytically grounded in the four dimensions of extractive stabilization, centered on epistemic justice, the redistribution of power, and the abolition of elite rule, arguing that genuine-ecological futures require a dismantling of the logic of rulership itself.