Candice Howarth

Exploring the science–policy interface on climate change: The role of the IPCC in informing local decision-making in the UK

Building on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) review of how to make its Assessment Reports (ARs) more accessible in the future, the research reported here assesses the extent to which the ARs are a useful tool through which scientific advice informs local decision-making on climate change in the United Kingdom. Results from interviews with local policy representatives and three workshops with UK academics, practitioners and local decision makers are presented. Drawing on these data, we outline three key recommendations made by participants on how the IPCC ARs can be better utilized as a form of scientific advice to inform local decision-making on climate change. First, to provide more succinct summaries of the reports paying close attention to the language, content, clarity, context and length of these summaries; second, to better target and frame the reports from a local perspective to maximize engagement with local stakeholders; and third, to work with local decision makers to better understand how scientific advice on climate change is being incorporated in local decision-making. By adopting these, the IPCC would facilitate local decision-making on climate change and provide a systematic review of how its reports are being used locally. We discuss implications of these recommendations and their relevance to the wider debate within and outside the IPCC as to the most effective way the IPCC can more effectively tailor its products to user needs without endangering the robustness of its scientific findings. This article is published as part of a collection on scientific advice to governments.

Sustainable travel behaviour and the widespread impacts on the local economy.

Statistics show that unsustainable travel behaviour and global greenhouse gas emissions are growing and due to the perceived indispensable nature of personal travel, shifts to more sustainable modes remain a challenge. Automobility supports sustained local economic growth but also raises issues around safety, health, road fatalities, traffic and congestion, and detrimental environmental impacts. This article addresses the issue of sustainable mobility by investigating how to increase sustainable travel choices and, where this is not possible, ensure existing travel choices and patterns are as environmentally friendly as possible. Existing soft initiatives aimed at increasing sustainable travel behaviour fail to fully acknowledge that travel decisions are made at the individual level and that tailored strategies would be more effective at targeting distinct behavioural patterns. Influencing changes in travel behaviour at the local level demonstrates significant potential where individual behaviour can be influenced if appropriate support at the system level is in place and complies with the needs of individuals. This article demonstrates that, in doing so, this will simultaneously address other areas, such as accessibility, employability, health and sustainable growth, crucial to the establishment and survival of automobility by both supporting local economic growth and achieving reductions in carbon emissions.

Climate stories: Why do climate scientists and sceptical voices participate in the climate debate?

Public perceptions of the climate debate predominantly frame the key actors as climate scientists versus sceptical voices; however, it is unclear why climate scientists and sceptical voices choose to participate in this antagonistic and polarised public battle. A narrative interview approach is used to better understand the underlying rationales behind 22 climate scientists’ and sceptical voices’ engagement in the climate debate, potential commonalities, as well as each actor’s ability to be critically self-reflexive. Several overlapping rationales are identified including a sense of duty to publicly engage, agreement that complete certainty about the complex assemblage of climate change is unattainable and that political factors are central to the climate debate. We argue that a focus on potential overlaps in perceptions and rationales as well as the ability to be critically self-reflexive may encourage constructive discussion among actors previously engaged in purposefully antagonistic exchange on climate change.

Introduction: Defining Nexus Shocks

This chapter introduces ‘nexus shocks’. It explores who and what they impact and how, why they are important, and why the lens of nexus shocks provides a useful approach to practically explore and inform decision-making about climate shocks to food-energy-water-environment (FEWE) resources. Characteristics of nexus shocks are presented and discussed in the context of decision-making as well as how interpretation of these characteristics across stakeholder groups and sectors can lead to detrimental decision-making processes. The chapter closes with an overview of the Nexus Shocks project, the findings of which form the basis of this book.

Mitigating and Exacerbating Climate Shocks to the Nexus

This chapter explores how responses to nexus shocks can help reduce impacts or make them worst. It draws on findings from five co-production workshops with the UK Met Office, Atkins, Chatham House, Lloyds of London and Willis Re, Cambridge Cleantech and LDA Design, to assess the factors that exacerbate and mitigate climate shocks to the food, energy, water, environment nexus and subsequent impacts. These are especially important to consider, as they enable opportunities for lessons learnt and better and more resilient responses to nexus shocks in future. However, these are often inadequately explored, and more is needed to ensure decision-making remains relevant and aligned with the needs of stakeholders affected by nexus shocks, when dealing with the complex nature of these shocks.

Challenges and Opportunities in Responding to Nexus Shocks

Nexus shocks are non-linear, spanning multiple sectors and geographies, with decisions often made with a sectoral focus. This can lead to failures to consider the impacts on and interactions of other sectors and stakeholders. A number of challenges and opportunities emerge when examining the impacts of climate shocks to the food, energy, water, environment nexus, particularly when exploring the relationship between society, the system on which it depends and its components (e.g. infrastructure, healthcare etc.). A system’s vulnerability and exposure to the risks produced by nexus shocks will affect its capacity to respond and the behaviours of people within it. This is where the co-production of approaches and space for bottom-up initiatives can pave the way to overcome challenges that emerge from nexus shocks and facilitate the design of sustainable and resilient responses to nexus shocks.

The Importance of Communication, Collaboration and Co-production

Building resilient responses to nexus shocks requires effective communication and collaboration across sectors and stakeholders, yet this is not always achieved. The Nexus Shocks project examined how communication and collaboration could be enhanced, adopting a co-production methodology with policy, practitioner and scientific communities. This chapter discusses the barriers and challenges to communication and collaboration on specific nexus shocks, such as heatwaves and flooding, and identifies pathways to strengthen responses. Co-production provides a constructive way to deliver more salient decision-making processes which incorporate the needs of those affected in managing and responding to nexus shocks.

A Climate Change Information Framework for Behaviour Change

The urgency of climate change is communicated profusely across governments, decision makers, scientific and research communities. In countries such as the UK, where the future impacts of climate change are hard to perceive, action does not reflect this urgency. Consequently there is a need for a tailored approach in terms of climate change communication, from information content and dissemination, audience targeting and considerations affecting its reception to maximise its impact on action. This paper addresses how climate change information can influence action by investigating opportunities for changes in travel behaviour. It presents results from a questionnaire survey of 903 householders and five focus group discussions conducted in Hampshire, South East UK, on the use of climate change messaging for behaviour change. It identifies three distinct awareness groups based on levels of understanding of the causes of climate change (‘Human activities’, ‘Unsure’ and ‘Non-human’) and demonstrates that individuals aged less than 25 years old and over 55 show a stronger likelihood of being unsure of the causes of climate change or thinking this is not related to human activities. In addition to identifying audiences to target, barriers to change are identified: low willingness to engage in sustainable travel behaviour was found to result from a perception that climate change is too forbidding to be tackled on a personal level. However environmental information was found to be a positive reinforcer of future behaviour rather than a direct driver of change. The paper concludes by presenting a framework on how to best deliver climate change information to influence lifestyle changes by clearly designing the information around behaviour, audience, messenger, content and delivery tools. It suggests that climate change information can be used directly to address perceived barriers to behaviour change and increase intention to change behaviours. Moving away from current models of linear and one-dimensional dissemination of climate information, the framework can be used for multiple audiences and behaviours allowing for comparison, monitoring, evaluation and transferability of results.