Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: ABSTRACT Despite decades of awareness, societies have failed to adequately respond to climate change, as evidenced by rising CO2 emissions and the continued dominance of fossil fuels in global energy consumption. This failure underscores the structural constraints of capitalist modernity, where economic and political incentives, as well as consumer behaviors, obstruct effective climate action. Beyond the challenge of mitigation, climate change raises pressing questions about its social and political consequences. Societies will face increasing losses due to extreme weather events, resource depletion, and declining living conditions, exacerbating social inequalities and undermining the legitimacy of existing political and economic structures. The inability of capitalist modernity to address this crisis fosters a state of social anomie, where normative commitments to sustainability clash with entrenched systemic realities. Social scientists have a crucial role in examining these structural failures and identifying pathways for adaptation, resilience, and transformation. By analyzing the conflicts and contradictions within current societal arrangements, they can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of climate change as a profound challenge to social order and political stability.
Source: Regulation & Governance
DOI: 10.1111/rego.70003
Author: Jens Beckert
Institution: Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4407800353