Abstract

This is the Capitalocene, an age characterised by death derived from capitalism's endless accumulation, growth, and resource exploitation. In the Capitalocene, policies dedicated to climate change mitigation are intertwined with a capitalist logic, perpetuating a self-reinforcing cycle of validation and harm. Based on a political ecology approach analysing the Australian government's climate change mitigation policies, I suggest, these policies promote the deferral of climate change action and the slippage into death-boundedness—subtly and over time. By casting climate issues as matters of economic growth and energy transition, policies create the appearance of robust action while neglecting the fundamental drivers of environmental harm such as the conflict between ongoing capital accumulation and ecological well-being. Additionally, legal systems reinforce these harmful cycles and hinder meaningful climate change mitigation. As such, climate change mitigation policy in the Capitalocene represents 'necropolicy', death-bound policy. 

Keywords: Australian Climate Policy, Capitalism, Capitalocene, Climate Change Mitigation, Policy Analysis, Political Ecology, necropower

How to Cite:

Lundberg, K., (2026) “Necropolicy in the Capitalocene: Australia's political ecology of death”, Journal of Political Ecology 33(1): 7520. doi: https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.7520