Is a climate transition really happening? What do political economists mean when they talk about climate 'transformation'? Does it require overcoming capitalism? Should we be honest that we're actually talking about revolution? If so, what political agent could possibly bring it about?
Chris Saltmarsh is a postgraduate researcher studying the climate movement at University of Sheffield. Stan Wilshire is a postgraduate researcher studying the political economy of British climate governance at University of Manchester. Rebekah Diski is a postgraduate researcher studying the influence of nationalism in responses to climate change at University of Warwick. Uttara Narayan is a postgraduate researcher studying subjectivities and inequalities in decarbonisation jointly at University of Manchester and University of Melbourne
They join Josh White to discuss whether political economy should embrace a revolutionary approach to studying climate transition. They discuss how we should characterise the ecological upheavals in global politics; its relationship to capitalism; the most common approaches in the literature; the relationship between reform, revolution and transformation; and potential political agents for such revolutionary change.
This SPERI Presents... episode is a live recording of the roundtable "Towards a revolutionary political economy of global climate transition" at PSA26 conference. It was co-organised by the Political Economy Perspectives specialist group and SPERI Doctoral Researchers Network. It took place in Oxford on Wednesday 1 April 2026.
This episode is produced and edited by Chris Saltmarsh. Music and audio by Andy_Gambino. Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
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