In the last year, hundreds of climate emergency declarations have been made by local and national governments around the world. Instigated through grassroots activism, these declarations have become a focus of aspirations for radical climate action. However, concerns have also raised been about the desirability of emergency declarations in responding to the climate crisis, including at a local scale. In this paper we consider the enactment of emergency declarations by two local government authorities in Aotearoa New Zealand that have recent experience with multiple crises. Drawing on in-depth interviews with activists, councillors and officials, our findings show that adopting the ‘international language’ of climate emergency can be a source of hope but also tension. In particular, we highlight the struggle of local practitioners to overlay an emergency approach, something that is already contested in response to sudden onset disasters, with the scale, complexity and temporality of climate change. Our analysis suggests that retrofitting an emergency approach to the climate crisis at the local scale has the potential to reproduce status quo politics, and calls for a greater understanding of the diversity of approaches to emergency in climate politics.

去年，世界各地的地方和国家政府发布了数百项气候紧急情况声明。在草根激进主义的煽动下，这些宣言已成为激进气候行动愿望的焦点。然而，也有人担心紧急声明在应对气候危机方面的可取性，包括在地方范围内。在本文中，我们考虑了最近经历过多次危机的新西兰 Aotearoa 的两个地方政府当局颁布的紧急声明。通过对活动家、议员和官员的深入采访，我们的调查结果表明，采用气候紧急情况的“国际语言”可以带来希望，但也会带来压力。特别是，我们强调了当地从业者努力将应急方法与气候变化的规模、复杂性和时间性相结合，这种方法在应对突发灾害方面已经存在争议。我们的分析表明，在地方范围内改进应对气候危机的应急方法有可能重现现状政治，并要求更好地了解气候政治中应对紧急情况的方法的多样性。