Social Transformation for Climate Change

This book argues that social transformation is both necessary and possible if democracies are to respond effectively to the climate crisis without social collapse.

Climate transformation and social transformation are intimately connected. Understanding how to address climate change requires a historical approach both to the climate and to our collective institutions of humanity. Drawing on the works of Karl Polanyi and Thomas Piketty, Nicholas Low traces the course of historic social transformations from Britain, Russia, and Australia to highlight key commonalities: social crisis, the widespread sense by those in power that ‘something has to change’, the shift in ideology, and the political champions that drove the change. Within its international scope, the book delves deeper into specific instances of inequality and poverty from Britain, the USA, Australia, and the Global South. It shows how these examples are connected with the current climate emergency. Finally, the author draws together all the evidence from past transformations to outline how a new social democratic transformation could generate a better future, creating the social solidarity necessary to cope with the climate crisis.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, environmental politics and policy, political ecology, environmental sociology, and environmental studies more broadly. Its argument is also highly relevant for political actors working towards social and economic transformation.