Each participant was asked to write a short paper which was circulated in advance of the workshop and answered
two central questions: 1) What is the state of sociological research on global climate change? 2) What are the
major research questions that sociologists should be asking and answering about climate change?
What follows in this report is a summary of the discussions and recommendations that emerged from the
workshop. The first three parts of the workshop report correspond to topics included in the IPCC Fourth
Assessment’s Summary for Policymakers: causes, impacts, and mitigation and adaptation.^7 Specifically,
participants were asked to identify the current state of sociological knowledge on global climate change and the
most pressing understudied sociological questions. What knowledge and tools do sociologists bring to the table to
better understand the causes, identify the impacts, and help to mitigate and adapt to global climate change? What
are the core unanswered sociological research questions about climate change causes, impacts, mitigation, and
adaptation? Workshop participants’ answers were used to outline an agenda to guide future sociological research
and inform policy on global climate change.
Part I summarizes ongoing and promising new areas of sociological research about the social causes of global
climate change. Part II identifies presents ongoing and promising new areas of sociological research about the
social impacts of global climate change. Part III describes ongoing and promising new areas of sociological
research about the social dimensions of mitigation and adaptation to global climate change. Part IV contains
recommendations for advancing sociological research on global climate change, including recommendations
for catalyzing the discipline of sociology, forging interdisciplinary collaborations, and developing capacity and
infrastructure to increase sociology’s contribution to understanding and responding to global climate change.
(^7) IPCC, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report, Summary for Policymakers (Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Background