Abstract
A transition to a decarbonised economy is a climatic, ecological, and humanitarian necessity. Much of the research on this defining task for humanity has been of a sociotechnical nature. There is less research concerning the enabling conditions and processes for accelerating the political and policy changes required. All nations, including Western capitalist democracies, face formidable challenges in creating a consistent set of policies and actions to decarbonise their economies as quickly as possible. The UK government has opted for a least-cost, techno-managerial ‘net zero by 2050’ decarbonisation target, which maintains the existing socio-political regime and attempts to de-politicise the climate issue. This research argues for a more radical, science- and equity-based ‘rapid transition’ to net zero by 2035 at the latest. How can advocates for rapid transition succeed in re- politicising and building sufficient common cause to trigger positive political change? What theory of change, political strategy and narrative vision would be needed? The more radical the policy ambition, the more necessary it becomes to describe a political process that can result in the desired interventions, beginning with the ‘ecosystem’ of actors and coalitions, political economy, institutions, and other contexts that currently exist. Based on a novel method for categorising and mapping actors in the UK climate policy ‘ecosystem’, and on a thematic analysis of forty-seven face-to-face expert interviews and one hundred expert views in total, this multidisciplinary research examines the political, sociological, and psychosocial dimensions of sustainability transitions and proposes an adapted multilevel perspective for rapid political and policy transition. It finds the potential exists for an advocacy coalition for rapid transition, but its prospects for achieving decisive political influence are slim in the current UK context. It recommends a combined ‘top- down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approach, one that can create and sustain a nationally coordinated movement, but also one that is place-based and participatory and puts citizens at the forefront of radical societal transformation.