Companies and Climate Activists in the Transformation toward Deep Decarbonization

There is a growing ecology of actors concerned with climate change and trying to promote a transformation toward the goal of a deep decarbonization of society. At the same time global emissions curves do not point downwards, the world is still tightly locked into a fossil fuel-based economy. How do various actors position themselves vis-à-vis the transformation? How can their potential and actual contributions to deep decarbonization be assessed? This lecture starts with a broad assessment framework and then discusses in depth the contributions by companies and climate activists. These two groups are normally analyzed separately, with different methodological and theoretical tools. The lecture brings these different types of actor perspectives together and looks at them individually and in interaction with each other.

Anita Engels spent her first 18 years of sociology at the University of Bielefeld, interrupted by 18 Postdocs months at Stanford University in California. Since 2005, she has worked at the University of Hamburg and has helped create a hub of social science research on climate change. She spent many years co-chairing and chairing the Cluster of Excellence Climate, Climatic Change, and Society (CLICCS). As a professor of sociology, she conducts research on company responses to the challenges of climate change, on local climate governance and civil engagement, and on financial flows.

Suggested preparatory reading

Engels, Anita; Marotzke, Jochem; Gonçalves Gresse, Eduardo; López-Rivera, Andrés; Pagnone, Anna; Wilkens, Jan (eds.) 2023: Hamburg Climate Futures Outlook 2023. The plausibility of a 1.5°C limit to global warming – Social drivers and physical processes; Cluster of Excellence Climate, Climatic Change, and Society (CLICCS). Hamburg, Germany; DOI: 10.25592/uhhfdm.11230