Punishment and climate change: Southern voices on cooperation-based justice

Abstract

This article argues that addressing climate change requires abandoning state-centered punishment models as our response to harm and violence. The focus here is not environmental justice per se, but a consideration of how the impacts of climate change may alter criticisms of incarceration and western punitive practices in a broad sense. An approach centered on climate change can promote alternative models of justice that go beyond punishment. To support this central argument, the article has three steps: it first critiques superficial “greening of penology” efforts, advocating for ecological, participatory conflict transformation. It then delineates an ecocentric justice framework drawing on two fundamental tenets: decoupling accountability from harsh treatment through punishment and fostering non-state reparative practices. Lastly, it critically reviews the appropriation of Indigenous thought in western restorative justice, yet emphasizes other transformative, community-based harm responses from Brazil rooted in ecological principles as promising for reimagining non-punitive, climate justice.