Climate Fiction

Climate fiction, sometimes shortened to cli-fi, is literature that deals with climate change, generally speculative in nature but inspired by climate science, with works set in the world as it is, in the near future, or in fictional worlds undergoing climate change. The genre frequently overlaps with science fiction and dystopian or utopian storytelling, imagining potential futures grounded in research about the impacts of climate change and speculation about how humans may respond, and technologies such as climate engineering or adaptation practices often feature prominently. The genre's contemporary prominence is often linked to the 2020 publication of Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, which drew mentions from a United Nations forum and the American presidency and an invitation for Robinson to meet planners at the Pentagon, and university courses on literature and the environment increasingly include climate fiction in their syllabi, with lists of notable works compiled by organizations including Grist, Outside Magazine and the New York Public Library.