Contextualizing emergency powers and climate crisis in liberal democracies

This thesis develops a theoretical framework for and responds to concerns regarding the use of emergency powers to combat climate change in liberal democracies. Consensus in the scientific community maintains that the window for acting to mitigate the worst effects of climate change is rapidly narrowing. Emergency powers enable governments to create and implement policy quickly by circumventing normal democratic channels. In the name of the greater good, leaders empowered by emergency orders may ignore norms viewed as essential to maintaining liberal democracy. Surveying Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant, and Locke this thesis develops a theoretical framework in which the use of emergency powers is justified to combat the existential threat climate change poses to the state and humanity while recognizing the paradoxical tensions this creates. This thesis goes on to counter objections to using emergency powers to address climate change, including that climate emergency politics results in a narrow definition of climate change mitigation and adaptation, enables executive overreach or creeping authoritarianism, and permits infringement of individual rights.