Climate Solidarity: A Framework and Research Agenda for Low‐Carbon Behavior

Abstract

Climate‐change mitigation is a matter of solidarity. Behaviors that primarily benefit other people are prosocial behaviors that can be considered solidarity at the collective level. For climate‐change mitigation, greenhouse gas emissions have to be reduced primarily in wealthy countries, while the major beneficiaries of such a reduction are the populations of developing countries and future generations, who (will) suffer the significant negative consequences of climate change. Climate change has created a new global interdependence that requires a new form of solidarity as a global and intergenerational prosocial behavior. Low‐carbon behavior has so far mainly been studied as a form of pro‐environmental behavior but not as a form of prosocial behavior. The article identifies four approaches to explaining the origin of prosocial behavior that can be applied to the emergence of low‐carbon behavior: rationalist, institutionalist, interactionist, and situational approaches. The scope conditions and limitations of each approach in the case of low‐carbon behavior are discussed, together with relevant empirical evidence, future research directions, and policy implications. The article lays the foundations for the study of climate solidarity as a new interdisciplinary field of research that can make a key contribution to the transition toward low‐carbon societies.