Climate science has progressed hugely in the past 43 years, since the first World Climate Conference in Geneva in 1979. We have more certainty about precisely how and why the climate is changing, and the associated impacts.
Similarly, advances in engineering research on limiting or mitigating climate change have progressed significantly. We have developed innovative technologies and systems that can meet our needs for shelter, warmth and food, etc, without releasing the harmful greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change.
When it comes to the science of how we stop climate change, however, here a different story emerges. The societal dimensions of climate action have not received the scientific attention they deserve, and this needs urgent attention if we are to bridge the growing disconnect between climate ambition and climate action.
This year’s report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) summarises the latest available knowledge from climate science. Observations reveal a 1.1-degree increase in average global temperatures since the industrial revolution, along with a 0.2m rise in global sea levels. These changes have been accompanied by associated widespread increases in the frequency and severity of heatwaves, heavy rainfall, droughts, and tropical cyclones. The science of directly attributing specific extreme weather events to climate change has also improved significantly, leaving no doubt about what is happening.
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We also have much stronger scientific evidence in the IPCC report on why this is happening, the undisputable role we humans are playing in causing climate change as we burn increasing quantities of coal, oil, natural gas and peat to heat our homes, to transport ourselves, and to power lights, appliances and factories. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels concentrations are higher than at any time in at least two million years, and every tonne of carbon dioxide emissions adds to global warming!
Opportunities and possibilities
The IPCC report also points to the opportunities and possibilities to address climate change, highlighting that the costs of several low-emission technologies have fallen continuously since 2010, at least 18 countries achieved sustained emissions reductions for longer than 10 years, and the consistent expansion of policies and laws addressing climate change.
It also provides future pathways on what is required to reduce emissions and avoid the most dangerous levels of climate change, ie reducing fossil fuels, increasing renewables, improving efficiency, reducing non-carbon dioxide emissions (including methane and nitrous oxide from agriculture), and deploying carbon dioxide removal methods.
Importantly, however, the IPCC report also highlights that the transition to net-zero energy systems is not just technological; it requires shifts in institutions, organizations, and society more generally. While this statement may appear obvious, this sixth assessment report of the IPCC is notable, in that it is the first time an IPCC assessment report features a specific chapter on the social aspects of emissions reduction.
Previous IPCC reports since 1990 have largely ignored the societal dimensions of climate action revealing a techno-centric focus on climate action. Technological innovation permeates much of our thinking about climate action, which in part explains the growing gap between climate ambition and climate action.
This IPCC report does highlight that socio-cultural changes within transition pathways can offer very significant carbon dioxide emissions mitigation potential at the global level, and therefore represent a substantial overlooked strategy in traditional mitigation scenarios. Similarly, it highlights that most global mitigation pathways in line with the politically agreed ambitions to remain below 2 degrees and 1.5 degrees temperature limits assume substantial behavioural and societal change and low-carbon lifestyles.
We must therefore look beyond the scientific data and the technical solutions to decarbonisation, in particular at the societal barriers and levers associated with attitudes, norms, incentives, politics and social capacity. We need a more open, anticipatory and socially grounded form of climate science.
Fortunately, there is emergent research on the societal aspects of climate action. Issues relating to social acceptability, lack of agency or policy inadequacies are some examples as to why transitioning to a zero carbon energy system is a far more complex process than simply substituting one energy source or technology for another.
One recent study called Imagining 2050 carried out by a multidisciplinary team of researchers at University College Cork and Queen’s University Belfast explored how we discuss and engage in dialogue on climate change and responses to it.
Energy transition
It is increasingly accepted that the services energy provides to us (warmth, mobility, etc) have a social justice function. Thus, important questions such as how to “manage” the energy transition and how to create better accountability mechanisms in the pursuit of innovation have placed a strong emphasis on democratic processes and systems.
More passive notions of public engagement such as consumer choice are being supplanted by new ideas of citizenship such as the energy “prosumer”, the “deliberative citizen” or the “smart citizen” with far deeper social and political ramifications. These new ideas suggest for instance a new role for citizens not just in consuming energy more responsibly, through engagement with smart technologies, but also in decision-making roles through deliberative engagements and in producing energy using renewable alternatives to carbon-based ones through investment in new energy sources and technologies.
The Imagining 2050 research project found the need for more deliberative and democratic forums that seek to bring together multiple stakeholders in order to develop a shared vision for the future. Not unlike national driven processes such as the Citizens’ Assembly on Climate, emphasis on democratic innovation and dialogue with multiple stakeholders has the potential to allow for a more considered, equal and fair decision-making process where the people directly affected have a say and an understanding of the reasons behind the choices made.
Another example is Corca Dhuibhne 2030 or Dingle Peninsula 2030 project, the focus here being on how research can support a rural community that seeks to transition to a low-carbon, sustainable future. Key to its success was the collaboration between a local not-for-profit Dingle Hub, a local community development organisation (NEWKD), Ireland’s electricity distribution system operator (ESB Networks), and MaREI, the Science Foundation Ireland centre for energy, climate and marine research. *
MaREI researchers from UCC adopted an engaged, or action research approach, embedding themselves on the Dingle Peninsula, carrying out research that was scientifically rigorous, and also locally usable. Alongside the natural and technical sciences, the societal dimensions of this local transitions project were critically important, both building and in parallel assessing local capacity development to enable climate action.
Decarbonisation targets
This initiative resulted in an increase in the use of low carbon technologies, but, more importantly, generated a wide range of initiatives, which are supporting the community in achieving its sustainability and decarbonisation targets.
The Dingle Peninsula is flourishing with examples of locally led climate action, achieved through the diffusion of sustainability across the community, from dairy farmers developing solar projects and children engaging in energy planning, to community members mobilising around sustainable transport planning and residents associations organising group retrofitting.
Instilling a collaborative approach to engaging with community contexts represents a favourable opportunity to enable this diffusion of sustainability, increasing local capacity to meet decarbonisation targets, with the social dimensions of climate mitigation given the same weight of importance alongside the technical solutions.
The IPCC has finally accepted the importance of the societal dimensions of climate action in emissions reduction scenarios. Recent research in Ireland in this domain has shed a light on how we can improve climate dialogue, and how engaged research approaches can support communities in delivering climate action.
- Dr Evan Boyle is a post-doctoral researcher and Dr Alexandra Revez is a research fellow at University College Cork. Brian Ó Gallachóir is a visiting professor at Columbia University
* This article was amended on Friday, August 19th, 2022.