Political theories of climate temporality: Extinction Rebellion, emergency time and decolonial time

The politics of climate change is also a politics of conflicting temporalities. However, we know little about how conceptualizations of climate and time shape political contestations on the ground. Similarly, we lack empirically grounded reflections on how different climate temporalities relate to each other and how they are shaped by histories of colonialism. This article addresses these gaps by developing an analytical framework of climate temporalities that investigates how activists combine diagnosis and proposed action in their political visions. Using ethnographic political theory, the article examines two competing temporalities within the climate movement Extinction Rebellion, namely, emergency time and decolonial time . Based on this analysis, the article argues that we should understand the relationship between different climate temporalities as intersecting, spatialised and resonant. This opens up new avenues for integrating political theory and empirical research into how past, present and future are mobilised for political purposes.