Critical Perspectives on Accounting 22 (2011) 682–697 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Critical Perspectives on Accounting j ourna l ho me pag e: www.elsevier.com/locate/cpa When science meets strategic realpolitik: The case of the Copenhagen UN climate change summit Chris Carter a,b,∗,1 , Stewart Clegg c,d , Nils Wåhlin e a School of Management, The Gateway, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9SS, UK b Newcastle University Business School, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4JH, UK c School of Management, Faculty of Business, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia d Visiting Professor Universidade Nova, Lisbon, Portugal e Umeå School of Business, Umeå University, SE - 901 87 UMEÅ, Sweden a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 20 April 2008 Received in revised form 30 September 2010 Accepted 23 April 2011 Keywords: Climate change Power Summits Institutional logics a b s t r a c t This paper argues that the impasse over tackling climate change at the 2009 climate change summit is a result of the outcome of the prevailing power and politics at the summit. The paper discusses the sociological literature on power and notes that the failure of the summit illustrates the fragility of legitimacy and authority. The paper rehearses key parts of the chronology of the summit and argues that the politics of domination often prevail over the politics of legitimacy. Moreover, the way in which both science and politics have failed to legitimate the issue of climate change is explored. The paper closes with a discussion of what is required to fix the issue as legitimate and meriting serious action by major international agencies and economies. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. In the environmental domain where more states have a voice, as became clear in Copenhagen, the dominant players brought enough bargaining power to the table to ensure that no global deal went through that might damage their interests. The Copenhagen Accord is marked by the absence of long-term emission targets, the omission of watertight pledges on new funding, and no clear indications of how to turn the Accord into a legally binding treaty. The big emitters – the US, China, India and the countries of the European Union – will continue to be able to act without a binding framework to enforce emission reductions and speed up the pace of a transition to a low-carbon economy. (Held et al., 2010: 13) 1. Legitimacy Climate change poses one of the major challenges to humanity, a proposition that is only disputed by a small minority of commentators and scientists (Giddens, 2009; Stern, 2006). Despite this apparent consensus there is a notable lack of substantive action to resolve or attempt to manage the problem at the level of global politics. While governments often brandish their green credentials this is, in most cases, little more than gestural politics. This begs the question of why, despite widespread agreement that climate change is a major problem, powerful actors cannot subscribe to a single course of action that might help halt man-made damage to the planet. The premise of our paper is that the inaction is the result of a lack of legitimacy over certain courses of action. In other words, various international agencies and national governments ∗ Corresponding author. Fax: +44 1334462800. E-mail addresses: cjgcarter@yahoo.co.uk (C. Carter), stewart.clegg@uts.edu.au (S. Clegg), Nils.Wahlin@usbe.umu.se (N. Wåhlin). 1 At the time of writing this paper Chris Carter was a Professor at the University of St Andrews, from September 1st 2011 he is Professor of Strategy at the University of Newcastle. 1045-2354/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.cpa.2011.04.002