Revisiting the Carbon Lock-In: Outlining an Agenda on How Affective Polarization Constrains Climate Policy Making

Carbon lock-in, the self-reinforcing inertia that perpetuates fossil fuel dependence, emerges from interdependent technological, institutional, economic, and behavioral factors. As climate policy has become increasingly polarized across advanced democracies, the role of affective polarization in reinforcing these barriers remains underexplored. This research agenda asks the following question: How and to what extent does affective polarization sustain the carbon lock-in? Drawing on social identity theory and the carbon lock-in literature, I propose a framework in which affective polarization operates as a cross-cutting process strengthening existing lock-in mechanisms through three pathways: (1) elite framing that activates both institutional distrust and out-group animosity toward pro-climate groups; (2) trust erosion linking vertical (elite–mass) and horizontal (mass–mass) polarization to sustained policy resistance; and (3) self-reinforcing feedback loops between polarizing rhetoric and mass resistance that persist across electoral cycles. Partisan identity sorting can transform climate policies into identity markers, turning otherwise reversible constraints into path-dependent barriers that persist even when policies are economically beneficial or technically effective. The agenda applies specifically to high-polarization contexts and calls for empirical investigation of these mechanisms and of depolarization interventions.