Comparing the transformative potentials of the FCCC and the CCD: An ecofeminist exploration

Abstract

This article undertakes a critical comparison and analysis of two environmental regimes – the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, Particularly in Africa – to explore their transformative potential. Drawing on Karen Warren’s ecofeminist ethics, the author compares and contrasts the ways in which these two regimes engage with the underlying institutional, structural, social and conceptual frameworks which ecofeminists argue contribute to the environmental degradation and the exploitation suffered by marginalised groups. She examines how marginalised communities have been involved in the evolution of the two regimes, the differing approaches towards science and technology, as well as the integration of differentiation within the two regimes. The author concludes that while both regimes have transformative potential, they both continue to affirm an ideological perspective that disembeds humanity from the environment, while at the same time commodifying nature in order to protect it.