Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the ways in which, in an age of populist identity politics driven by resentments, the German Green Party negotiate between the dematerial effects of climate change and the material premises of climates through electoral politics.

Paper long abstract:

The German Green Party and its electoral politics on climate change and environmentalism have gained considerable traction in the recent decades, sufficient enough for it to become the ruling party in Southern states of Germany like Baden-Wuerttemberg and claim the second-highest number of seats in the German Parliament. In an age of populist identity politics driven by resentments against material and dematerial tenents of society and economy, what makes European green parties’ electoral politics interesting is the way in which it continuously negotiates between articulating the dematerial effects of climate change and the material premises on which climates can be controlled and altered. This paper will specifically focus on the ways in which Green Party policies and politics ensure its electoral mandate in Germany by focusing on improving the micro-climatic conditions of Germany by actively resorting to renewable energies and reducing its carbon footprint. In doing so, the paper shall reflect on the possibilities of a conversation between the anthropology of electoral politics and anthropology of climate change that could reflect deeper into the material and dematerializing basis of the contemporary economy of the political.