Ecological Belonging and the Economics of Climate Change
Abstract
Climate change reveals a fundamental mismatch between humanity’s material and biological dependence on a shared ecological system and the institutional arrangements governing economic production, consumption, investment, and political responsibility.
This article develops an interpretation of climate change through the Philosophy of Belonging and its mature Ethics of Belonging. It argues that the climate crisis is not merely a problem of negative externalities, insufficient carbon pricing, or international coordination. It also reflects a failure of institutional correspondence and potentially inadequate collective adaptability.
The analysis is organized around four scientifically informed and revisable ontological principles: constitutive integration, imperfect belonging, stratified reality, and the synchronic and diachronic dimensions of existence. These principles explain how economic and institutional systems can generate present prosperity while undermining the ecological conditions necessary for future human development.
The article extends the Ethics of Belonging to environmental governance through three interrelated conditions of adequate social ethics: developing the belonging needs of constituent individuals and groups, enabling effective initiative and participation, and orienting collective decisions toward the development of the broader community. Together, these conditions provide a framework for investigating the relationship between social inclusion, institutional learning, and collective adaptability.
Individual ethics is incorporated through six interacting psychological developmental steps, connecting embodied experience, instincts, emotional development, love, social significance, existential meaning, conscious presence, and mentalization to the possibility of reflective ecological agency.
The framework is examined in dialogue with environmental externality theory, integrated assessment models, ecological economics, polycentric governance, environmental justice, and the capability approach.
The article proposes an institutional architecture combining credible ecological constraints, carbon pricing, public investment, social protection, participatory governance, international cooperation, and institutional adaptability. Nine testable propositions identify potential relationships among climate policy, social participation, economic transformation, emissions reduction, and long-term adaptive capacity.
The central contribution is to reinterpret ecological sustainability as a problem of organized belonging: effective responses to climate change depend not only on technological and economic instruments but also on the development of the individuals, groups, and institutions through which societies acquire the capacity to learn, coordinate, and transform.
The article offers a conceptual and empirical research program rather than a new quantitative estimate of climate damages or a claim that social inclusion alone can resolve the climate crisis.
Related
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- Integrating MaxEnt and copula models to assess plague-associated ecological suitability under climate change in Northern Tianshan, China
- The Economics of Belonging Measuring Economic and Social Achievement across Nations
BibTeX
@misc{diaz2026ecological,
title = {{Ecological Belonging and the Economics of Climate Change}},
author = {Carlos Federico Obregon Diaz},
howpublished = {Zenodo},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23576443},
url = {https://zenodo.org/records/23576443},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Ecological Belonging and the Economics of Climate Change
AU - Carlos Federico Obregon Diaz
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/22
PB - Zenodo
DO - 10.5281/zenodo.23576443
UR - https://zenodo.org/records/23576443
AB - Climate change reveals a fundamental mismatch between humanity’s material and biological dependence on a shared ecological system and the institutional arrangements governing economic production, consumption, investment, and political responsibility. This article develops an interpretation of climate change through the Philosophy of Belonging and its mature Ethics of Belonging. It argues that the climate crisis is not merely a problem of negative externalities, insufficient carbon pricing, or international coordination. It also reflects a failure of institutional correspondence and potentially inadequate collective adaptability. The analysis is organized around four scientifically informed and revisable ontological principles: constitutive integration, imperfect belonging, stratified reality, and the synchronic and diachronic dimensions of existence. These principles explain how economic and institutional systems can generate present prosperity while undermining the ecological conditions necessary for future human development. The article extends the Ethics of Belonging to environmental governance through three interrelated conditions of adequate social ethics: developing the belonging needs of constituent individuals and groups, enabling effective initiative and participation, and orienting collective decisions toward the development of the broader community. Together, these conditions provide a framework for investigating the relationship between social inclusion, institutional learning, and collective adaptability. Individual ethics is incorporated through six interacting psychological developmental steps, connecting embodied experience, instincts, emotional development, love, social significance, existential meaning, conscious presence, and mentalization to the possibility of reflective ecological agency. The framework is examined in dialogue with environmental externality theory, integrated assessment models, ecological economics, polycentric governance, environmental justice, and the capability approach. The article proposes an institutional architecture combining credible ecological constraints, carbon pricing, public investment, social protection, participatory governance, international cooperation, and institutional adaptability. Nine testable propositions identify potential relationships among climate policy, social participation, economic transformation, emissions reduction, and long-term adaptive capacity. The central contribution is to reinterpret ecological sustainability as a problem of organized belonging: effective responses to climate change depend not only on technological and economic instruments but also on the development of the individuals, groups, and institutions through which societies acquire the capacity to learn, coordinate, and transform. The article offers a conceptual and empirical research program rather than a new quantitative estimate of climate damages or a claim that social inclusion alone can resolve the climate crisis.
ER -