The Cadernos do OIMC series, a publication of the Interdisciplinary Observatory on Climate Change aimed at academic texts dealing with various aspects of the climate emergency, is launching its nineteenth volume: Unmasking the actors and discourses of climate obstruction in Argentina and Brazil. Co-authored by Guy Edwards (University of Sussex) and the Observatory’s coordinator, Prof Carlos R. S. Milani, with contributions from researchers Ricardo A. Gutiérrez (UNSAM), Ruth E. McKie (De Montfort University), Lucas Christe (UNSAM) and Janaína B. Pinto (OIMC), this edition presents a Portuguese version of a policy brief originally published by the Climate Social Science Network (CSSN), in translation by researcher Júlia Nascimento Santos (OIMC).

Here’s an extract from the introduction:

Very little is known about climate obstruction in the Global South. Here we present some of the initial findings of a comparative case study project to map climate obstruction actors, their narratives, and strategies in Argentina and Brazil. We define climate obstruction “as intentional actions and efforts to slow or block policies on climate change that are commensurate with the current scientific consensus of what is necessary to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”1 In the case of Argentina, the study is based primarily on 20 semi-structured interviews with academics, environmentalists, public sector actors and journalists conducted between September 2022 and October 2023.

Created in 2020 at the Institute for Environment and Society at Brown University (USA), the Climate Social Science Network brings together social science researchers from several Western countries and some countries in the South. Its working groups produce knowledge on different topics around climate denialism, geoengineering, conflicts of interest between the fossil industry and the pro-climate agenda. The publication of this translated article in Cadernos is part of the partnership between CSSN and the OIMC, whose coordinator also co-chairs the network’s WG ‘Natural Resources, Energy and Climate Obstruction in the Global South’.