“This is not a drill” - but is this a climate emergency? : On co-opted activist discourses, municipalism and institutionalized double realities in the city of Barcelona

Abstract: The worsening climatic condition, together with a renewed wave of climate movements have spurred declarations of climate emergency by governmental institutions worldwide. In the city of Barcelona, unique for its social movement history and activist city council, such a declaration was issued on January 15th, 2020. In this context, this thesis looks at the specific discourse on climate emergency by Barcelona’s city council. Through a Critical Discourse Analysis of the Declaration and other related texts produced by the city council, as well as of the institutional speeches held on its presentation, it seeks to unravel how Climate Emergency is operationalized through discourse, the discursive and ideological struggles the CED reflects and the social implications it might have. While municipalism and the Right to the City appear to be key in defining the climate emergency, there are also traces of ecological modernization, techno-managerial approaches and a consequent depoliticization of discourse. In a constant back and forth between the post-political condition and a push for repoliticization of climate change through the local, I argue that there is some room for addressing the cultural trauma that climate change represents, but the risks of falling into social inertia prevail.