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COVID-19, the Climate, and Transformative Change: Comparing the Social Anatomies of Crises and Their Regulatory Responses

Author

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  • Rolf Lidskog

    (School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Örebro University, SE-702 81 Örebro, Sweden)

  • Ingemar Elander

    (School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Örebro University, SE-702 81 Örebro, Sweden
    School of Business Society and Engineering, Mälardalen University, SE-722 20 Västerås, Sweden)

  • Adam Standring

    (School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Örebro University, SE-702 81 Örebro, Sweden)

Abstract

Despite forces struggling to reduce global warming growing stronger, there has been mixed success in generating substantive policy implementation, while the global spread of the coronavirus has prompted strong and far-reaching governmental responses around the world. This paper addresses the complex and partly contradictory responses to these two crises, investigating their social anatomies. Using temporality, spatiality, and epistemic authority as the main conceptual vehicles, the two crises are systematically compared. Despite sharing a number of similarities, the most striking difference between the two crises is the urgency of action to counter the rapid spread of the pandemic as compared to the slow and meager action to mitigate longstanding, well-documented, and accelerating climate change. Although the tide now seems to have turned towards a quick and massive effort to restore the status quo—including attempts to restart the existing economic growth models, which imply an obvious risk for substantially increasing CO 2 emissions—the article finally points at some signs of an opening window of opportunity for green growth and degrowth initiatives. However, these signs have to be realistically interpreted in relation to the broader context of power relations in terms of governance configurations and regulatory strategies worldwide at different levels of society.

Suggested Citation

  • Rolf Lidskog & Ingemar Elander & Adam Standring, 2020. "COVID-19, the Climate, and Transformative Change: Comparing the Social Anatomies of Crises and Their Regulatory Responses," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-21, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:16:p:6337-:d:395469
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Rolando Fuentes & Marzio Galeotti & Alessandro Lanza & Baltasar Manzano, 2020. "COVID-19 and Climate Change: A Tale of Two Global Problems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-14, October.

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