Introduction: Climate Change, Cosmopolitanism, and Media Politics

Abstract

The four papers shown in this special section have been chosen out of the 20 papers presented in an international conference on the overall topic of Climate Change and Risk Society: New Trends of Megacity Transformation held at Seoul National University from July 9-11, 2014,** with Professor Ulrich Beck who delivered a keynote public lecture Emancipatory Catastrophism: What does it mean to Climate Change and Risk Society at Press Center in the downtown of Seoul in the afternoon of July 8, 2014. Becks concept of global risk society starts from the recognition that modernization has produced new forms of risks that cannot avoid with advanced technology development. Modernization became a root cause of modern risks which are deeply embedded in modern society itself. In particular, global ecological risks threaten the survival of humanity. Perhaps, one of the most critical type of such global risks is climate change, a representative cross-boundary and inter-generational environmental problem.