Tackling Climate Change Through Social Change: A Comparative Analysis

In recent years there has been a widespread perception of climate change as a growing threat to security, both at the individual level and at the international level. This increased attention is mainly due to scientific research, which indicates that climate change is a process already underway, with observable facts and potentially serious consequences. Moreover, according to some scholars, even the immediate implementation of stringent mitigation measures—i.e. reducing greenhouse gas emissions—would not contain the effects of climate change in coming decades, making it necessary to combine the efforts of mitigation policies targeted for the prevention of major threats. Are there any chances for climate stabilization to be sustainable with the economic growth required under a capitalist system? On the one hand, climate environmentalists raise concerns about the risks associated with global warming. On the other hand, leading economists’ main concern is to foster economic growth, thus, a trade off is advocated. In fact, policy-makers are unlikely to impose a burden on the economic growth of their own country in order to meet the targets imposed by the international climate change agreements. This work intends to identify and suggest a framework for climate policies, with the aim to maximize social consensus, through an integration of the issues raised by both disputing fields. A proposed solution is to take into consideration an additional GDP driver, the so-called human capital that would allow a social change. Copyright Springer-Verlag Wien 2013