Carr and the climate: solidarity and sacrifice in international law

Abstract The article delves into the dissonances between aims and inaction in the climate regime, using Edward Hallett Carr’s work as a lens. Beyond the historical echoes of debates in the era of the League of Nations, the article draws out Carr’s more fundamental contributions for thinking about the travails of climate law in the present: his indictment of utopianism and rationalism, as though knowledge and insight lead to action; his dismissal of reductionist realism, as though morality does not matter; his call for blending realism with utopianism to avoid both determinism and voluntarism; and the question towards which his thought gravitates: Which non-utopian place to give to morality in international relations? Connecting to a view of ‘international law from below’, the article repositions international law not as an accumulation of ingenious texts to magically curb CO2 emissions, but as a mobilising force in transnational climate movements.