Political Economy and Climate Change

Abstract

The crisis of climate change threatens the existence of human civilization. As social scientists, we should be positioned to theorize and study whether or not the existing system of global capitalism can find ways to ameliorate the crisis or is doomed to cause that collapse because of the overwhelming power of dominant economic interests. This paper argues that right now our dominant theories of capitalism, fail to give us sufficient leverage to understand how and if the energy transition will happen. This suggests we urgently need new approaches which center on mechanisms of economic and political innovation and change in order to evaluate if such a transition is under way and how large its impact might be. The paper concludes with a research agenda focussed on these ideas.