Interrogating Climate Apartheid: Law, Economy and Culture - Conference and Call for Papers

Call for Papers: Interrogating Climate Apartheid: Law, Economy and Culture 

March 24-25, 2026

Organisers:
Professor Andrew Baldwin (Geography, Durham University)
Dr Simona Capisani (Philosophy, Durham University)
Dr Christopher Szabla (Law, Durham University)

Confirmed Speakers:
Professor Louise Bethlehem (Department of English, The Hebrew University of 
Jerusalem)
Professor Carmen Gonzalez (Loyola University Chicago School of Law)

The term ‘climate apartheid’ has been used in a variety of contexts to characterise
forms of unequal climate change adaptation. It is often used broadly to describe an 
observable pattern in which those with the means to survive climate change become 
physically separated from the vast majority of the world’s population for whom 
surviving climate change will be an unaffordable luxury. Whether ‘climate apartheid’ 
is an appropriate term to describe this pattern remains an open question. Still, the
term has found its way into climate change legal discourse, economic reasoning, and 
popular culture, suggesting its growing importance among a variety of different 
climate change actors. The meaning of ‘climate apartheid’ is varied, often signifying
uneven patterns of climate-related mobility and immobility, infrastructure, exposure to 
risk, availability of insurance and access to the very means of survival, including 
capital, drinking water, energy, food, soil, land and biodiversity. Use of the term 
‘climate apartheid’ also coincides with the insistence on the part of the scientific
community that planetary climatic conditions are far more dire than is often 
commonly realised. At the same time, ascendent authoritarianisms which often deny 
the science of climate change pose a significant challenge to the very legal regimes
that underpin collective action on climate change, and inequalities related to it, even 
while the impacts of climate change are often experienced acutely in places where
denialist sentiment is widespread.

This two-day conference provides an interdisciplinary platform for academic and 
non-academic stakeholders to interrogate the concept of climate apartheid. It will be 
focused on, but not limited to, putting the realms of law, economy, and culture into 
dialogue around a set of questions that pertain to the term or concept:

• What and for whom is ‘climate apartheid’?
• What does the notion add to existing scholarship on, for example, climate 
  justice, international criminal law, environmental ethics or to narratives on 
  politics and climate?
• What—if anything—distinguishes it from other concepts concerned with the 
  links between climate and inequality?
• What kinds of values, normative commitments and/or narrative undergird the 
  concept of ‘climate apartheid’?
• What kind of relationship can be said to exist between ‘climate apartheid’ and 
  the history and legacies of South African Apartheid?
• To what extent is ‘climate apartheid’ primarily a material condition, a 
  discursive formation, or geographical imaginary?
• What legal, economic and cultural processes are said to give rise to ‘climate 
  apartheid’?
• What are the conceptual limits of ‘climate apartheid’?
• What institutional implications does 'climate apartheid' have for addressing the 
  ethics of climate finance?
• Is there value in using ‘climate apartheid’ as a rhetorical device for mobilizing
  broad political support for climate change? Or would this usage be 
  counterproductive?
•  What types of obligations might climate apartheid help to establish for urban,
  national and multilateral policy negotiations?

This conference welcomes contributions from academics from all disciplines with an 
interest in addressing these and other questions relating to climate apartheid. While
bbroadly organized around the conceptual pillars of law, economy and culture, the 
conference is open to all disciplinary, methodological and theoretical orientations. 
Abstracts of up to 500 words should be submitted using this form no later than 
December 19, 2025. Decisions about all submissions will be notified no later than 
Friday January 9, 2026. 

Enquiries can be directed to Professor Andrew Baldwin w.a.baldwin@durham.ac.uk .