Culture and identity in climate policy

Culture and (collective) identity need to become more central in thinking about how ambitious climate policy for decarbonization can be enacted within domestic (i.e., national, subnational) politics. Policy attention has long centered on material costs and benefits of action, including distributions of costs/benefits between different actors and over time. The challenge of reconciling concentrated short-term costs to specific actors and groups with diffuse long-term benefits to a much wider range of actors remains central, particularly considering inequality both within and between societies. But culture and identity also play an important role in shaping the opportunities, challenges, and dynamics of realizing ambitious climate action (e.g., following Hulme, 2009). For example, the social construction of risk and action, the feasibility of phasing-out specific industries and transitioning toward new practices, and the fractious dynamics of populism and polarization that threaten to derail collective action all have strong links with issues of culture and identity. Culture in the most general sense refers to a basic social fabric that ascribes meaning to people in their relations and practices, and which may be tied to history, language, community, and artifacts. This creates tendencies to think about the world in particular ways, influencing preferences and decision making (Zaval, 2016). For example, Adger et al. (2013) view culture as comprising “symbols that express meaning” which “create collective outlooks and behaviours.” Bulkeley et al. (2016) view culture as not only a milieu mediating social relations, but also as co-emergent with everyday socio-material practices (e.g., relations with infrastructures and technologies), forms of subjectivity (e.g., embodiment of social identities and roles) and resistances (e.g., frictions against deliberate changes). In this sense, culture not only infuses people's ways of making meaning, but is also continuously (re)produced through engagements with others and the material world. Collective or social identity (hereon, simply “identity”) refers to conception of self and others in relation to perceived commonalities with a wider group such as experiences, interests, and sense of solidarity (van Stekelenburg, 2013). Identity has long been an important topic in sociological, geographical, and political scholarship. For example, identity can motivate mobilization for shared causes in social movements (Meyer et al., 2002), is tied to place/space in geographical processes (Warf, 2010), and is linked to demands for recognition and dignity as well as partisan tribalism in contemporary polarized politics (Fukuyama, 2018). Furthermore, identity can arise at a range of scales. For example, climate change scholars have highlighted national (e.g., Eckersley, 2016), community (e.g., Mayer, 2018), political (e.g., McCright & Dunlap, 2011), and religious (e.g., Peifer et al., 2016) identities. Culture and identity are related but not synonymous. Identity can be seen as an aspect of the broader notion of culture. Both culture and identity are increasingly highlighted in climate change literature over the last decade and provide complementary entry points for understanding intangible drivers of collective behavior regarding climate policy. Yet, these issues may be approached in widely varying ways,1 and implications for strategic climate action are not always clear. Bringing different lines of thinking into dialogue is needed to explain the dynamics of climate (in)action and to find opportunities to advance climate policy within complex social-political-historical contexts. In this Commentary, I briefly survey some prominent ideas on culture and identity in climate change literature to provide an orientation for thinking about how climate policy for decarbonization might proactively engage with these still under-recognized issues. More broadly, I contend that without attending to matters of culture and collective identity, climate policy for decarbonization may encounter deep-seated resistance and even provoke political backlash. Culture and identity can influence multiple areas of climate policy for decarbonization. For example, the phasing out of coal mining within communities and nations (Brown & Spiegel, 2019), the creation of new everyday low-carbon practices in housing and mobility (Bulkeley et al., 2016), the durability of national climate policy (Lockwood, 2013), the impact of right-wing populism on climate action (Lockwood, 2018), and the mobilization of youth movements (Wielk & Standlee, 2021) have all been linked to matters of culture and identity. More broadly, Hulme (2009) argues that climate change is fundamentally refracted through culture in how it comes to be understood and gain meaning and value, and Ghosh (2017, p. 8) argues that a “broader imaginative and cultural failure … lies at the heart of the climate crisis.” Several prominent thematic clusters on issues of culture and identity in strategic action are observable in climate change literature (Table 1). First, culture can be seen as a mediator of perceptions (e.g., risk, expectations) and responses (e.g., adaptation and/or mitigation actions). This approach2 locates culture in an intermediate causal role between external forces and emergent collective action, and tends to view identity as relatively static but productive of action. Second, culture can be seen as generative and co-constitutive of everyday socio-material practices. This approach3 locates culture in the interplay of discourse, materiality, and practices, and suggests a view of identity as multiple and incoherent, and hence indeterminate. Third, culture can be seen as a disruptive force due to investments in cultural categories, especially group identities, that clash with climate action. This approach4 locates culture in conflictual interactions linked to grievances and norms, and views identity as largely static and antagonistic. Nevertheless, this typology of stances is illustrative rather than exhaustive; the three approaches reflect differing emphases but the boundaries between them are still blurry. The focus in this line of thinking concerns how people come to make sense of climate change within their cultural context and (possibly) act in response. Here culture is seen as linked to place attachment and also as a complex fabric of social life through which climate change risks come to be understood within specific communities (Adger et al., 2013). For example, this could include communities at risk of drought, flood, or sea-level rise (Adger et al., 2013; Rühlemann & Jordan, 2021; Thomas et al., 2019), pro-environmental actions of individuals (Zaval, 2016), and even the translation of general interventions such as carbon markets into specific political economies with traditions in governance and extant narratives about climate change (Knox-hayes & Hayes, 2014). Feola et al. (2019) argue that a dynamic perspective is needed to examine how culture and the experience of climate change are interconnected, and propose a focus on “knowing” (i.e., knowledge processes), “being” (i.e., sense-making through lived experiences and practices), and “doing” (i.e., responses). This encourages differentiated and context-sensitive examinations of how climate change relates to diverse communities (e.g., urban/rural, Indigenous/non-Indigenous, wealthy/non-wealthy). A stance toward culture as mediator of action is useful in place-based studies of people and environmental change, where the focus is on the capacity of people to respond to external change and/or the ways in which they adapt to new circumstances. The focus in this line of thinking concerns how everyday socio-material practices arise and reproduce, and their embeddedness in discursive formations that construct particular roles and expectations. Here culture is approached in relation to situated activities (e.g., mobility, work, leisure, caregiving) and discourses that shape what is desirable and how people see themselves (Bulkeley et al., 2016). For example, Ghosh (2017, pp. 9–10) explains how “culture generates desires” such as over automobiles (e.g., entailing mobility and freedom), appliances (e.g., services, comforts, and aesthetics), and places to live (e.g., nearness to water's edge as conveying social status). Paterson (2007) examines the cultural politics of automobiles, including how they come to epitomize freedom but can also simultaneously constrain freedom when they become essential for day-to-day living. From another angle, Brown and Spiegel (2019) highlight the role of intersectional injustices (e.g., linked to gender, race, class) and persistent discursive formations (e.g., linked to colonialism, patriarchy) as key areas of struggle within transitions away from coal production in specific communities. Distilling a view of cultural politics, contrasted against a common focus on informational and frame-centered approaches, Bulkeley et al. (2016) argue for a focus on interactions between “devices,” “desires,” and forms of “dissent.” This encourages reflection on the multifaceted material and discursive dynamics that afford or hinder shifts in everyday practices. A stance toward culture as generative and co-constitutive of everyday practices is useful in studying how climate action arises within particular combinations of discourses and materialities. The focus in this line of thinking concerns how climate action collides with political fault lines linked to personal investments in cultural categories. Here culture is seen as a force associated with group identity, particularly at the level of a polity (e.g., a nation) but also in place-based communities, that is often disruptive to climate action through mobilizing resistance on the basis of ideology, values, and worldviews. For example, this line of thinking is present in literature on right-wing populism and its potentially negative consequences for climate action (Hess & Renner, 2019). In this light, Lockwood (2018) argues that right-wing populist opposition to climate action is best explained by ideological and cultural factors rather than structural economic factors, due to the role of symbolic appeals and cross-class support. More generally within a heterogeneous society, Laidely (2013) observes that differential cultural (and economic) capital can create resentment among non-elites toward climate policy when it is perceived as imposing deprivation or reflecting status-seeking by elites. At a national level, scholars observe a fusion between fossil fuels and aspects of national identity in multiple countries including the United States (Daggett, 2018), Poland (Kuchler & Bridge, 2018), Russia (Bouzarovski & Bassin, 2011), Canada (Dalby, 2019), India (Lahiri-Dutt, 2016), and Australia (Curran, 2021). Conversely, national identity projecting an outward sense of responsibility for impacts on other places can support political responses to climate change, such as in Norway and Germany (Eckersley, 2016). At a group level, McCright and Dunlap (2011) find significantly higher climate change denial among politically conservative white males than other groups in the United States, arguing that this is due to identity protection under shifting cultural norms, and Krange et al. (2019) find a similar pattern in Norway. Daggett (2018) argues that such resistance is linked to “petro-masculinity” where moves away from fossil fuels may be viewed as threats to identities that are tied to fossil fuel production and consumption activities or symbols (e.g., large cars, certain forms of labor). From another angle, place-based communities may hold a shared generational identity tied to fossil fuels (e.g., coal mining towns), which can create complex social dynamics and ambiguities in energy transitions (Della Bosca & Gillespie, 2018). A stance toward culture as disruptive, or at least problematic, for climate action is useful in studying aggregate patterns of resistance especially when deep socio-political divisions are present. Different stances toward culture and identity are clearly useful for different types of research questions, and no single approach will provide a complete analytical vantage point. Nonetheless, there is an opportunity for dialogue across different strands of thinking. Approach 1 (Culture as mediator of perception and action) draws attention to the historical embeddedness of culture within specific places, reflecting a core concern with the resilience of cultures threatened by external forces as well as the complex ways that culture conditions human responses. Yet, it also suggests a somewhat static and homogenous view of culture, which could be enriched by insights about continual cultural production and reproduction (highlighted by Approach 2) and cultural cleavages and contestation within a community (highlighted by Approach 3). Approach 2 (Cultural politics of everyday practices) draws attention to the (re)production of culture through and with practices and discourses, reflecting a core interest in the formation of subjectivities, desires, and socio-material relations that create ambiguities and tensions in climate action. Yet, it could also be taken to overemphasize fluidity and abstraction which could be enriched by attention to historically formed meanings for people in a place (highlighted by Approach 1) and fractious and divisive social forces linked to worldview and ideology (highlighted by Approach 3). Approach 3 (Clashing cultural investments) draws attention to the cultural roots of struggles over political change, reflecting a core interest in how such cleavages drive conflict between social groups within a community. Yet, it also suggests a somewhat reified and “negative” view of culture (at least concerning some groups), which could be enriched by insights about place and historically formed meanings (highlighted in Approach 1) and the construction of cultural categories and their indeterminacy which can allow for change (highlighted in Approach 2). Importantly, conceptual differences will no doubt complicate efforts to combine insights from different approaches (e.g., key variables, assumptions about the fixity/indeterminacy of culture and identity, focal scales of analysis). Nonetheless, creative exchange of ideas is possible through sources of inspiration for questions and forms of inquiry, and inclusion of new issues. The importance of a multifaceted approach to studying culture and identity comes into focus when considering strategic questions of climate policy and governance. Finding ways to realize transitions/transformations toward decarbonization in nations, regions, and communities is a central challenge in contemporary politics, but continues to prove extremely challenging. How might attention to culture and/or identity support efforts to realize ambitious climate policy for decarbonization (e.g., its prospects and/or pace)? This is not necessarily about using culture and/or identity instrumentally (e.g., harnessing the arts for public engagement), but rather, about giving careful attention to the ways in which climate mitigation policy relates with extant cultures and identities, and considering whether there are opportunities for policy to proactively address areas of potential discord (e.g., regarding conflicting experiences of loss, meanings, identifications and values). This is unlikely to be straightforward. For example, Adger et al. (2013, p. 116) state (regarding climate adaptation) that “[c]ulture and identity are difficult to incorporate into public policy: losses of public goods such as community and place are not easily compensated or swayed by arguments over economically rational adjustments to risk.” Moreover, cultural conflicts might not be resolvable through any specific policy intervention. But at the same time, there are arguably ways in which climate policy can better take account of culture and identity, and could even proactively target these aspects to better attune climate action to specific social-political-historical contexts. Three key policy implications concern: (1) engagement with multiple sources of meaning, (2) recreation of identities, and (3) action formation among policy recipients. The three approaches profiled each suggest differing ways in which meaning/s of climate policy might arise. In Approach 1, meaning arises in relation to people's existing connections to place, shared narratives and history, and even shared experiences and values. Climate policy could aim to support social wellbeing of communities in specific places, and seek to tie into their existing shared narratives and values. For example, Hulme (2009) suggests that climate action could be reimagined through new myths (relating to nostalgia, fear, pride, justice) as forms of meaning-making tied to basic human instincts, which could translate differently in different places. In Approach 2, meaning arises through discourse and the embodiment of subjectivities and desires through everyday socio-material practices. Climate policy could aim to support new discourses of climate action that involve transformed forms of everyday life, and reconfigure infrastructure to reduce conflicting desires about low-carbon living. For example, if private automobiles remain necessary for fulfilling basic social roles (e.g., work, caregiving) then conflicting desires about their use will remain for many people (following Bulkeley et al., 2016, p. 189). In Approach 3, meaning arises through political ideology and worldviews, through both actual experience and symbolic affiliations/sympathies. Climate policy could aim to recognize and address areas of legitimate grievance among disaffected groups and build on foundational values and norms of a political community to recast the meaning of climate action. For example, Adger et al. (2017) explore how conservative moral values (such as authority, stability, duty, and sanctity) relate to climate change adaptation but also have particular resonance for “prevention of impacts, and protection of and (Adger et al., p. The three approaches profiled also suggest differing ways in which identity relates to climate and how identity may be In Approach 1, identity is from community, place and history, and through shared Climate policy could with recognition of the importance of communities their identity and provide material support for activities which or identity. For example, et al. argue that a sense of group and is important for adaptation in communities. processes might over long and (e.g., to support and social In Approach 2, the focus be on people's subjectivity within and in relation to climate action, where subjectivity refers to the ways in which people come to see themselves through the discourses in which they are and their relations to specific and infrastructures (Bulkeley et al., 2016). Climate policy could support ways of low-carbon in the and the shifts in material that For example, this could involve in and that economic and social without In Approach 3, identity is linked to group or and might also include against perceived threats to identity. Climate policy could seek to support processes of identity recreation in communities phasing out fossil fuel production (e.g., & Bosca & Gillespie, 2018), and even new forms of national identity that are from fossil But a key challenge is to find ways to the symbolic of fossil fuels as of collective identity for The three approaches also suggest differing implications for action formation by policy recipients. In Approach 1, the focus is on practices and actions within specific places, which are by community norms but also respond to (e.g., through (e.g., Climate policy could seek to support communities to build their to and respond to climate change in ways they For example, this could involve and and communities to in their responses et al., 2019). In Approach 2, the focus is on change in socio-material practices considering desires, and forms of Climate policy could seek to frictions by people in low-carbon practices by infrastructures and practices. For example, this could include a community approach to domestic housing 2016), or that to their practices with wider cultural values such as low-carbon et al., 2016). In Approach 3, the focus is on resistance from certain groups within a political community. Climate policy could be in ways that potentially to the values of (e.g., conservative where But it might seek to resistance by to core values in the political community or even recognize some forms of conflict as in a wider cultural struggle over climate action. research on culture and identity in climate action suggests that policy and governance scholars may need to (e.g., in efforts to realize ambitious climate policy for decarbonization. For example, approaches climate action could make many people without attention to the cultural meaning of such action and its resonance with people's extant identities, which may not be under a of a transformed strands of thinking can policy making in this but much more is needed to and More broadly, this also to questions about the role of new Climate policy and governance literature has on culture and identity in relation to transitions of existing and/or the politics of everyday (e.g., automobiles, But new (such as and governance as well as of and carbon with culture and identity in complex For example, meanings about relations, values regarding differing worldviews, and identity (e.g., national will influence these remain with issues of culture and identity is a necessary to material issues in climate policy and governance. The consequences of these include key causes of political deep-seated resistance if ambitious climate policy collides with people's everyday a sense of for people or groups that can political and possible political to climate policy. At Climate from for that with and reflecting on the culture and identity of climate policy in decarbonization and This has from the under the research and The Hulme and for on a are the responsibility of the

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