Climate obligations and social norms

Stephanie Collins

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 2023, vol. 22, issue 2, 103-125

Abstract: Many governments are failing to act sufficiently strongly on climate change. Given this, what should motivated affluent individuals in high-consumption societies do? This paper argues that social norms are a particularly valuable target for individual climate action. Within norm-promotion, the paper makes the case for a focus on anti-fossil fuel norms specifically. Section 1 outlines gaps in the existing literature on individuals’ climate change obligations. Section 2 characterises social norms. Section 3 provides seven reasons why social norms are a particularly worthy target for individual climate actors. Section 4 asks which social norms individuals should emphasise, arguing that anti-fossil fuel norms have advantages over emissions reduction and offsetting norms. Section 5 outlines the pathways and mechanisms individuals might exploit to promote anti-fossil fuel norms.

Keywords: change change; individual obligations; social norms; emissions reduction; offsetting; anti-fossil fuel norms (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:pophec:v:22:y:2023:i:2:p:103-125

DOI: 10.1177/1470594X231156930

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