ABSTRACT
It is important to know why the climate change issue moves some communities, more than others, to respond actively and concretely to its implications, and whether this is different from how they are responding to more general calls for sustainable development. What are the conditions that succeed in making a shift to acting on climate change? This is especially interesting since there are widespread laments that this is not happening. When active, concrete response emerges, is it because key individuals have made the difference? To what extent have other stakeholders been critical to their success? Are particular local conditions necessary? In the absence of direct threats, is the response due to informed global altruism, or crass economic calculation, or even both? In our work with these questions in Sweden, we want to know if the increasing focus on climate change also marks a significant turning point in the work to achieve sustainable development.
