Chapter 8 explores the ways in which mitigation has been politicised. Each of the four aspects of politics, set out in Chapter 3, is revisited to assess degrees and types of climate mitigation politicisation – partly to better understand the politics of acting to mitigate in this current phase and partly to identify important tensions and opportunities that need to be recognised when thinking politically about mitigation.

Chapter 7 starts in 2018 and builds toward the mid2020s. This was an extremely turbulent and difficult time for many. Aside from extreme situations, COVID-19 and the (re-)starting of armed conflicts, some of this turbulence has been related to the world’s inability to reduce emissions quickly enough and to rising inequalities within countries. Despite the many crises faced, key high-emissions regions, not least the EU and China, continued to dedicate capacities to governing for climate mitigation. This chapter is partly about revisiting the original compromises, set out in Chapter 4, to assess how they have changed and with what implications for how mitigation is framed and approached today. It is also partly about reflecting on what the analysis undertaken in this book offers in terms of insights for improved mitigation policymaking so that it can better support, mainly distributional, forms of justice.