Temporality and the Acceleration of Net-zero Transitions:A Framework of Temporal Strategies in Sociotechnical Change

This paper develops a theoretical framework that positions temporality as an endogenous structuring force in sociotechnical transitions. We conceptualise time as a strategic and contested resource, enacted through four temporal dimensions: temporal scale, temporal dynamics, temporal coordination, and space. These dimensions make visible how transitions are paced, sequenced, aligned, and spatially differentiated, and how they are deployed by social actors to intervene in transition processes. To integrate these dimensions, the paper advances a Chronos-Kairos perspective. Chronos denotes institutionalised and measurable time embedded in routines, infrastructures and policy cycles, while Kairos captures eventful, opportune moments in which alignment, urgency, and legitimacy converge. We introduce temporal agency as actors’ capacity to configure these temporalities and develop temporal strategies as purposeful interventions in the four temporal dimensions. We show how institutional actors, incumbents, challengers, consumers, and civil society strategically create, extend, disrupt, and re-stabilise temporal orders in net-zero transitions. These dynamics crystallise in four ideal-typical temporal phases: Kairos creation, Kairos extension, Chronos disruption, and Chronos re-stabilisation, which together explain how acceleration and deceleration of sociotechnical change emerge as outcomes of temporal contestation rather than linear processes.