Boosting resilience against climate change? A post-development and climate justice deconstruction of EU climate resilience-building in the South Caucasus

Across the South Caucasus, the European Union (EU) has been promoting climate resilience by emphasising adaptation to climate change. Drawing on the transformative turn in sustainability studies, climate justice scholarship and post-development thinking, this article deconstructs the EU's approach to climate resilience in the region. Through a critical discourse analysis of EU policy documents, we find that the EU's resilience-building perpetuates dominant paradigms of (green) economic growth, extractivism and modernisation, which depoliticise the climate crisis, while reinforcing the EU's hegemonic status. By examining grassroots resistance to hydropower injustices in Georgia, we highlight possible alternatives to tackling socio-ecological crises beyond resilience.