​I read this earlier on in the year (January or February 2022) and put off writing a book summary until now. The book summary is not as detailed as what I hoped to write.
 
Climate Leviathan is a great work of political theory (I have absolutely no formal training in political science or political philosophy—my assessment should not be taken as authoritative) that attempts to sketch out how the concept of the political will change due to the ongoing pressures of the climate crisis. In Wainwright and Mann’s view, the most likely future is the Climate Leviathan, which marks a continuation of capitalist social relations and planetary sovereignty, justified as a “state of exception” by global capitalist elites to preserve life on Earth. This is not Wainwright and Mann’s preferred future: by writing this book, they also attempt to liberate alternative ways of thinking: “If good climate data and models were all that were needed to address climate change, we would have seen a political response in the 1980s. Our challenge is closer to a crisis of imagination and ideology; people do not change their conception of the world just because they are presented with new data…” (p. 7).
 
Wainwright and Mann sketch out four political possibilities by taking two dichotomous conditions. The first condition asks whether future forms will be capitalist or non-capitalist and the second condition asks whether there will be a planetary sovereignty with decision making authority. From these two conditions, four “ideal type” political possibilities emerge: these are hegemonic blocs with their own class and ideological bases. There is the capitalist Climate Leviathan that strives for planetary sovereignty; Climate Mao, which is a non-capitalist planetary sovereign; Climate Behemoth, capitalist and anti-planetary sovereignty; and the inchoate Climate X, which is non-capitalist and against planetary sovereignty. The challenge of climate change is so great that we cannot assume the continuation of capitalist liberal democracies as the dominant political form. These four forms will struggle to frame political responses to climate change, shaping the world along these struggles.
 
I provide a further (but still brief) description of each form. Climate Leviathan is the realization of a planetary sovereign that “is a regulatory authority armed with democratic legitimacy, binding technical authority on scientific issues, and panopticon-like capacity to monitor the vital granular elements of our emerging world” (p. 30)—Wainwright and Mann point to the UN COP meetings as an early iteration. Bounded, nation-state-based regulatory regimes are unable to meet the challenge of climate change. Climate Leviathan represents an international regime, but one that is “the construction of a nominally ‘global’ frame that is in fact a political and geographical extension of the rule of the extant hegemonic blog: the capitalist global North” (p. 31). Wainwright and Mann point out that the capitalist foundations of Climate Leviathan may prevent its emergence, given that the inequalities generated by capitalism lead to difficulties with trans-class and transnational cooperation.
 
Climate Behemoth is a reactionary movement to the climate crisis. It is often marked by climate change denial and is opposed to international intrusions into domestic politics (and by extension, it is opposed to Climate Leviathan). It has so far expressed itself in ethnonationalist and reactionary populist movements (e.g., Modi, Trump, Brexit) led by neoliberal elites and disenfranchised groups who feel threatened by climate action (e.g., Koch brothers and workers in the gas and oil sector).
 
Like Climate Leviathan, Climate Mao is also based on a planetary sovereign, but one that “wields this power against capital” (p. 38). In contrast to Climate Leviathan’s “lop-sided, elite-based, liberal proceduralism” (p. 39), which is moving us too slowly to make the systemic changes necessary to address climate change, Climate Mao has the power to make rapid state-led transformations to society. Wainwright and Mann think that Climate Mao is a uniquely Asian path given certain historical and current conditions: “massive and marginalized peasantries and proletariats, historical experience and revolutionary ideology, and powerful states governing large economies” (p. 41), along with the disproportionate effects of climate change in Asia (e.g. the floods in Pakistan earlier this year).
 
Finally, Climate X is the future in formation by the climate justice movement; it is a non-sovereign alternative to Climate Leviathan that transcends capitalism, motivated by the guiding principles of equality, inclusion and dignity of all, and solidarity of many worlds. An ever-inchoate formation, it is determined not by universal claims to a common “we,” but by local conditions, histories, experiences; it is Wainwright and Mann’s hopeful future for the troubled world to come. 

​With this book, Buck operates in the much unexplored zone between apolitical techno-optimists and left-leaning critics who dismiss technology completely. She extricates the discussion of geoengineering and climate technologies away from the current techno-scientific, expert-led discourse, and pulls it into the messy realm of politics. For Buck, climate technologies can be multiple things: they are a variety of practices; a verb or process, not a noun/thing; a form of governance; an infrastructure. The left refuses to engage with climate technologies, given that such discussions could stem efforts to decarbonize; however, the development and creation of climate technologies cannot just be left to the experts—civil society engagement is required to shape these technologies in a democratic way.
 
Why climate technologies? Buck adopts the bathtub metaphor to respond to this question. Not only do we need to stop the flow of water into the bathtub (de-carbonize) but we also need to remove the water currently sitting in the bathtub (remove carbon dioxide through technologies). It is simple arithmetic: since the Industrial Revolution human beings have emitted 2,200 gigatons of CO2 and carbon dioxide equivalents, and emitting 1,000 more gigatons of CO2 will raise the temperature by 2 degrees. Since human beings emit 40 gigatons of CO2, or 50 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent per annum, we only have 20 years until the carbon budget is used up, when the water in the bathtub starts to spill out. (Note: The Sixth IPCC Assessment Report on Mitigation of Climate Change discusses carbon removal technologies in some depth as well.)
 
There are two broad categories of carbon removal technologies: 1. biological climate solutions and 2. engineered solutions. For biological climate solutions, carbon is sequestered in living things; as for engineered solutions, carbon is buried geologically. In her discussion of the various solutions under each category, Buck writes in a mode that is semi-journalistic, partly-speculative fiction, and semi-academic. She writes about her numerous travels all over the world to attend conferences, interview experts, and visit field sites, contextualizing and adding to the discussions with secondary sources. She caps off the discussion of the solutions with a short story to give readers a feel of a possible future.
 
Both biological climate solutions and engineered solutions cannot be addressed through the current political-economic status quo. Buck suggests that carbon removal is seen more productively through the frame of waste removal—a public good—it is not something that could be left to market-driven incentives. Carbon removal at a socially significant level will require a massive societal transformation. Buck spends the last third or so of her book exploring the contours of such a society.
 
(Note: I cut this review short and do not mention one of the key topics in the book, which was mentioned in the title: solar geoengineering.)