Coping with decarbonisation: An inventory of strategies from resistance to transformation

Abstract

Decarbonisation is progressing rapidly and different actors respond to its impacts in different ways. Whether these responses seek to resist decarbonisation, adapt to new realities, or fundamentally transform the social and economic conditions that define decarbonisation contexts depends on the actor groups in question and the resources they are able to draw upon. This paper provides an overview of the kinds of “coping strategies” used by different actor groups in response to decarbonisation policy by inventorying these responses across eleven European carbon intensive regions in transitions. Using newspaper data, local level focus groups and elite interviews, a data set of 651 responses was created. Actions were grouped into 8 themes and 34 discrete strategies. These strategies reveal a wide range of responses. They demonstrate that resistance responses often reflect unaddressed injustices, that many governments are focused on decarbonisation strategies that substitute renewables for fossil fuels without changing wider socioeconomic conditions, and that there is broad appetite on the part of publics for more transformative strategies that allow deeper participation and representation, and reshape who benefits, and how, from the reorganisation of energy systems.