We develop the concept of “ideological denialism” as ideas and practices underlying responses to climate change that:

1. Acknowledge that climate change is real and primarily driven by human activities, and that we should take immediate action to mitigate its current and projected serious harms.
2. Implicitly or explicitly misdiagnose the underlying social drivers of climate change, a misdiagnosis that is often embedded in proposed or real ineffective actions and laws.
3. Limit the suite of effective actions that could be adopted to challenge the social drivers of climate change. These limits are erected by either: (a) assuming that ineffective strategies (e.g., lifestyle changes) are “realistic” and effective themselves, or (b) adopting ineffective strategies (e.g., carbon markets) in order to suppress strategies that would challenge the social drivers of climate change.
4. Maintain, rather than challenge, the current social order.

The argument draws on a good deal of environmental sociology. Apologies for not citing everyone who should be. Some references (and nuance) were lost to meet the word limit.

Relatedly, here’s a recent article on climate inaction that develops a political-economic theory of perception and interpretation (paywall, email if interested).  And here’s a more systematic empirical application of the latter theory in the context of farmer perceptions of climate change (no paywall).