Social Movements and Climate Change: “Climatizing” Society From Within
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- Publication Type:
- Chapter
- Citation:
- Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science, 2022, 1, pp. 1-26
- Issue Date:
- 2022-05-18
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| acrefore-9780190228620-e-845.pdf | 2.27 MB |
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Climate change brings profound challenges for social movements. The persistent failure to address climate
challenges has driven a rapid “climatization” of politics. Spurred by the climate justice movement, social
movements across a broad spectrum have become directly engaged with climate issues. Social movements are
defined as groupings of people who act intentionally through an organization or via a network or even as a loose
affiliation. They must have a collective identification and capacity for sustained action and participation. Their
purpose often is to transform the conditions for social change as key agents in creating a “movement society” of
mass political involvement. In doing so, social movements engage in a “metapolitics” of creating power and
recreating society. Climate movements are increasingly being shown to have this effect. Recent research
demonstrates that with climate change, there is a growing realignment in the social movement field to
simultaneously address both climate concerns and social agendas. New forms of social agency are emerging under
climate change, posing a new kind of climatized “movement society.” Arguably, as demonstrated by the limited
efforts at developing international climate policy, mass mobilization on climate issues is a necessary element of any
strategy to secure climate stability. Three broad fields of action are evident – politicising the impacts of climate
change, contesting the causes, and advancing solutions. In each there is a widening field of agendas as climate
concerns overwhelm existing social relations. Distinctive strategies emerge. First, there is growing collective
identification among people affected by the impacts of climate change, now or anticipated, with a marked shift
from climate advocacy to climate organizing, of acting “with,” not “for” those affected. Second, actions to challenge
the legitimacy of the fossil fuel sector have escalated, materializing the causes of climate change in the fossil fuel
cycle. With this, there is a move from abstract demands for emissions reduction to much more concrete demands
for fossil fuel phase-out. Finally, in terms of solutions, there is a move from a focus on emission-reduction programs
to wider policy agendas designed to transform social relations. Emissions reduction is no longer seen as a burden to be shared, but as part of wider social transformation, of benefit to all.
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