Part III: Sociological Approaches to Climate Change
Mitigation and Adaptation
Scientific research hypothesizes a wide array of consequences
of rising global air and water temperatures for different
regions of the world: shifts in the availability of fresh water
resources, changes in growing seasons and food supplies,
increased coastal flooding, rising numbers of heat waves,
unpredictable variations in the types and locations of diseases,
and increased likelihood of severe weather events. Natural and
social science research has begun exploring the implications of
these predicted outcomes for human populations. They have,
however, only begun to develop strategies using this emerging
knowledge about the scope and outcomes of climate change.
There are many opportunities for sociological research on
mitigation (i.e., the reduction) of the drivers of climate change
and adaptation to (i.e., coping with) the significant changes
already underway. Many of the areas of sociological theory
and research outlined in Sections I and II above are potential
contributors to climate change mitigation and adaptation
research. The 2007 IPCC reports identify a number of mitigation and adaptation options for managing changes
in water resources, agriculture, infrastructure and settlement issues, human health, tourism, transport, and energy
usage and production that can be informed by sociological research. There are also research opportunities to study
variations in individual, community, and national resiliency and capacity to respond to climate change causes
and consequences. These are not well-developed research topics in the scientific community, and do not reflect
the broad involvement of social scientists. This gap in social science knowledge and representation is both an
opportunity and a challenge for sociology as the world struggles to identify feasible mitigation and adaptation
strategies for responding to global climate change, especially in light of the inequalities likely to be associated
with both mitigation and adaptation.^28 Each section below contains both a summary of sociological approaches to
climate change mitigation and adaptation and a discussion of promising areas for future research.
Multi-Level and Global Governance: Sociologists have begun to study the possibilities of different governance
arrangements to maximize the effectiveness of climate change countermeasures. The climate change problem
is global, but can only be solved through integrated governance systems at multiple levels: local, regional,
national, and global. Given the potential for any individual signatory to defect from world-wide emissions
control agreements, the success of such global governance efforts will require relatively high voluntarism
(^28) “Adaptive capacity is intimately connected to social and economic development but is unevenly distributed across and within societies.”
IPCC, Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report, Summary for Policymakers, p. 14.
Part III: Sociological Approaches to Climate
Change Mitigation and Adaptation