The Climate Impasse: Disavowal, Exhaustion and Everyday Life in the Climate Crisis

Abstract

The consequences of climate‐related disasters and emergencies are becoming increasingly stark. And yet in many places, consensus on climate action appears unattainable. I call this problem the climate impasse. In this paper, I draw on emerging theory on affect and negativity to characterise this impasse in three ways. I argue first that, rather than solely addressing governments' failure to act, this impasse develops through people's different lived experiences of the climate crisis. Second, the paper outlines the material conditions of possibility for the climate impasse. I claim here that this impasse has arisen owing to unequal, and often highly racialised, levels of access to vital infrastructure that shape people's different experiences of a changing climate. Third, the paper extends understanding of the consequences of the climate impasse. Beyond simply a stoppage in action, impasses allow some carbon‐intensive infrastructural norms of liberal modernity to continue despite their growing implausibility as the climate changes. I expand on these claims through developing our understanding of exhaustion and disavowal as two feelings that both organise peoples' experience of a changing climate and collectively contribute to the climate impasse. These wider arguments stem from research that explores the connections between heatwaves and the racialised politics of urban planning in Louisville, Kentucky.