Oceans Rise Empires Fall: Why Geopolitics Hastens Climate Catastrophe

by Gerard Toal

Overview

A powerful explanation of why geopolitical competition makes implementing effective climate change policies so difficult. As the Russia-Ukraine war has shown, great-power competition drives states to prioritize fossil fuel acquisition over working toward a zero-carbon future.

In the last few years, it has become abundantly clear that the effects of accelerating climate change will be catastrophic, from rising seas to more violent storms to desertification. Yet why do nation-states find it so difficult to implement transnational policies that can reduce carbon output and slow global warming? In Oceans Rise, Empires Fall, Gerard Toal identifies geopolitics as the culprit. States would prefer to reduce emissions in the abstract, but in the great global competition for geopolitical power, states always prioritize access to carbon-based fuels necessary for generating the sort of economic growth that helps them compete with rival states. Despite what we now know about the long-term impacts of climate change, geopolitical contests continue to sideline attempts to halt or slow down the process.

The Ukraine conflict in particular exposes our priorities. To escape reliance on Russia's vast oil and gas reserves, states have expanded fossil fuel production that necessarily increases the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. The territorial control imperatives of great powers preclude collaborative behavior to address common challenges. Competitive territorial, resource, and technological dramas across the geopolitical chessboard currently obscure the deterioration of the planet's life support systems. In the contest between geopolitics and sustainable climate policies, the former takes precedence-especially when competition shifts to outright conflict. In this book, Toal interrogates that relationship and its stakes for the ongoing acceleration of climate change.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197693261
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/04/2024
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	486,612
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Gerard Toal is Professor of Geography at Virginia Tech and the author of numerous books, including Near Abroad (Oxford), Bosnia Remade (Oxford, co-authored) and Critical Geopolitics (Minnesota).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Rising Threats
1. Geopolitics All Around
2. Grounding Geopolitics
3. Making Geopolitics Critical
4. Territorial Anxieties
5. Missions and Emissions
6. Higher Further Faster
7. Geopolitical Condition Red
Conclusion: Uncharted Territory

Editorial Reviews

01/01/2024

Toal (geography, Virginia Tech; Near Abroad) examines the continuing rivalries of dominant nations during an ecosystem crisis. The title of this book takes its name from the musical Hamilton. In Toal's case the phrase refers to "the clash between earth system dynamics and world power structures." Geopolitics is traced from late 19th-century writings by British and German imperialists. At stake have been territory, resources, and influences leading to survival of the fittest nation. Modern national primacy demands steady economic growth and vast amounts of energy to supply industry and armed forces. Toal outlines the militarization of land, ocean, atmosphere, and space. Meanwhile more of Earth is due to become uninhabitable. He notes that global collaboration is essential to reduce emissions, moderate global heating, and limit ecological damage—not top priorities for the most powerful nations. He says they have failed to reduce their own emissions as they exploit remaining hydrocarbon sources. VERDICT A thorough, recommended critique of geopolitical business-as-usual and its effects on emissions. The book also contains some guarded optimism about the rapid global spread of renewable power generation.—David R. Conn

Library Journal

2023-10-27
An academic assessment of the relationship between geography and the politics of nations.

Driven by an impetus to control and/or expand their territory and to influence what happens within and beyond their borders, “world powers use and abuse the earth,” writes geography professor Toal, author of Near Abroad: Putin, the West, and the Contest for Ukraine and the Caucasus. To protect and enhance their sovereignty and boost their economies, nation-states exploit the land, oceans, air, and now outer space, and they do so in competition with other nation-states. The author argues that this struggle for resources, trade, political status, and territorial dominance—anchored in the modernist “dream of endless growth”—has made, and continues to make, Earth less habitable. Toal’s title, however, is not quite accurate. The author emphasizes climate change, while discussions of geopolitics and the issue of declining empires are effectively absent. Toal devotes most of the book to the intellectual origins of—and counter-arguments to—a geopolitical point of view, and he does so insightfully and with authority. Major figures in the text include the 20th-century British geographer Halford Mackinder, the “Father of Geopolitics,” and the political theorist Carl Schmitt. Climate takes center stage only in the chapter on Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine; the author uses the invasion as an example of how war, a major form of international competition, devastates the environment. Central to Toal’s discussion is his assessment of NATO’s efforts to expand its territorial, political, and economic influence, an institutional project that may have triggered Putin’s attempt to remake Russia as a great power. In conclusion, the author reflects broadly on how current geopolitical factors might be changed to halt their destructive climate consequences. As an optimist, he suggests that “when conditions are right and leaders courageous, great powers can and do cooperate.”

A convincing indictment of nation-states for crimes against the planet.

Kirkus Reviews