New Paper: The Role of Emotions for Climate (In)Action

Emotions play an underestimated role for how humans make meaning about their place in the world and respond to problems. What is most puzzling about climate inaction is that it occurs in spite of the overwhelming knowledge about the problem at stake. Instead of trying to explain climate inaction as a result of (un)awareness, this paper introduces a new perspective by conceptualising climate inaction as an active social process animated by emotions. To illustrate how emotions energise climate (in)action, I sketch how fear, grief, and hope animate current climate responses. By looking at how emotions connect knowledge and action, we can better understand how climate inaction can persist and how transformative change might be enabled.

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Between climates of fear and blind optimism: the affective role of emotions for climate (in)action

Abstract. Emotions affect how humans relate to others and define their place in the world. They thus shape responses to socio-ecological problems like climate change. In spite of the overwhelming knowledge and concern about climate change, a lack of appropriate moral and political consequences prevails in most contemporary societies. Instead of trying to explain climate inaction as a result of (un)awareness, this paper introduces a new perspective by conceptualising climate inaction as an active social process animated by emotions. Drawing on an interdisciplinary and radically relational perspective, I grasp climate inaction as a product of more-than-human intra-action and explore the affective role of emotions within this production. To illustrate how emotions energise climate inaction, I sketch how fear, grief, and hope animate current climate responses.