Inside and outside the tent : climate change politics at the 2009 United Nations climate change conference

Without doubt there are aspects of climate change that transcend the realm of human politics. The interaction of glacial and carbon cycles, the previous history of the planet's warming and cooling, the unfolding of the effects of present climate change over a period much longer than usually considered in historical and political terms"”all point to processes and timescales that are difficult for humans to visualize or understand. Combined with the recognition that human beings today act as a geophysical force, these considerations suggest a scenario that reaches beyond questions of human justice or experience. The recent work of Dipesh Chakrabarty (2009, 2012) has been exemplary in exploring these dynamics and suggesting why climate politics, whether articulated as policy or in activist registers, seems perpetually to fall short of the challenges it confronts. This chapter is more modest in its aims. It explores a prominent instance of such shortfalling and probes its implications for changing systems of global governance, the cultural politics of climate change and the role of the museum sector in negotiating such governance and politics.