Frans Berkhout

Socio-economic futures in climate change impact assessment: using scenarios as 'learning machines'

Climate impact assessment needs to take account of two interrelated processes: socio-economic change and climate change. To date, future change in socio-economic systems has not been sufficiently integrated with an analysis of climate change impacts. Participative and synthetic scenario approaches offer a means for dealing with critical issues of indeterminacy, innovation, reflexivity and framing in analysing change in socio-economic systems, paving the way for a coherent way of handling of socio-economic futures in impact assessment. We argue that scenarios represent heuristic tools that encourage social learning in climate impact assessment. The advantages and disadvantages of a scenario-based approach are explored using examples from regional climate impact assessment in the UK.

Technological regimes, path dependency and the environment

The relationship between technological change and the environment has been a critical issue for environmental policy for over two decades. Technology is seen as both the root-cause of many environmental problems, while also offering the means for reducing the ecological footprint of human activities. Recently this debate has become more urgent, partly as a result of renewed interest in policy communities, and partly as an outcome of conceptual and theoretical developments in the study of innovation and the environment. Policy communities are faced with major challenges including questions about how industrial economies can be radically decarbonised, and how step-jumps in resource efficiency may be achieved. New research on innovation and the environment emphasises the importance of looking at the level of technological systems and at the link between technologies and the institutional settings they are embedded within. In The Netherlands this has led to an important policy debate about the management of ‘system innovations’ in pursuit of high-level sustainability objectives (VROM, 2001). How did we get to this point in the debate? What do we know about these larger-scale technological transitions? What can we say about their management?

Normative expectations in systems innovation

Abstract This paper is concerned with the way technological expectations are generated, articulated and deployed in processes of large-scale socio-technical change. We argue that expectations are intrinsic to all social action, so that visions of the future are both ubiquitous and context-specific. Agents will act in relation to private visions of the future that are complexly related to shared or collective visions. Characteristic features and forms of visions as they relate to socio-technical regimes are identified, and the specific roles visions play in the context of actor networks engaged in processes of systems innovation are discussed. Visions are seen as ‘bids’ that are deployed by actors in processes of coalition-formation and coordination. Examples from a range of visions of more sustainable systems are used to illustrate the main arguments. The paper ends by discussing the normative features of socio-technical expectations.

Adaptation opportunities, constraints, and limits

Since the IPCCs Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), demand for knowledge regarding the planning and implementation of adaptation as a strategy for climate risk management has increased significantly (Preston et al., 2011a; Park et al., 2012). This chapter assesses recent literature on the opportunities that create enabling conditions for adaptation as well as the ancillary benefits that may arise from adaptive responses. It also assesses the literature on biophysical and socioeconomic constraints on adaptation and the potential for such constraints to pose limits to adaptation. Given the available evidence of observed and anticipated limits to adaptation, the chapter also discusses the ethical implications of adaptation limits and the literature on system transformational adaptation as a response to adaptation limits. To facilitate this assessment, this chapter provides an explicit framework for conceptualizing opportunities, constraints, and limits (Section 16.2). In this framework, the core concepts including definitions of adaptation, vulnerability, and adaptive capacity are consistent with those used previously in the AR4 (Adger et al., 2007). However, the material in this chapter should be considered in conjunction with that of complementary WGII AR5 chapters. These include Chapter 14 (Adaptation Needs and Options), Chapter 15 (Adaptation Planning and Implementation), and Chapter 17 (Economics of Adaptation). Material from other WGII AR5 chapters is also relevant to informing adaptation opportunities, constraints, and limits, particularly Chapter 2 (Foundations for Decision Making) and Chapter 19 (Emergent Risks and Key Vulnerabilities). This chapter also synthesizes relevant material from each of the sectoral and regional chapters (Section 16.5). To enhance its policy relevance, this chapter takes as its entry point the perspective of actors as they consider adaptation response strategies over near, medium, and longer terms (Eisenack and Stecker, 2012; Dow et al., 2013a,b). Actors may be individuals, communities, organizations, corporations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), governmental agencies, or other entities responding to real or perceived climate-related stresses or opportunities as they pursue their objectives (Patt and Schroter, 2008; Blennow and Persson, 2009; Frank et al., 2011).

Learning to listen: institutional change and legitimation in UK radioactive waste policy

Over the course of 50 years, UK radioactive waste policy change has been coupled with institutional change, without much progress towards the ultimate goal of safe, long‐term stewardship of wastes. We explain this history as a search for legitimacy against a shifting context of legitimation needs and deficits. Following Habermas, we argue that legitimation is derived from a process of justificatory discourse. In principle, there must be a reasonable exchange of arguments between diverse parties in society, based on common norms, for legitimacy to be achieved. We show that the work of legitimation in UK radioactive waste policy has moved from a focus on factual validity claims towards an increasing emphasis on deliberative processes. This reframing of legitimation needs explains institutional and policy changes in UK radioactive waste policy. The most recent phase of policy and institutional change, which placed public deliberation about long‐term management and disposal options centre‐stage, represents a new step towards bridging legitimation deficits. Plans to build new nuclear reactors in the UK based on a more closed ‘streamlined’ decision process risk reversing the legitimacy gains that have been achieved through growing openness on radioactive waste management.

Negotiating Environmental Change: New Perspectives From Social Science

Shifting perspectives in environmental social science, Frans Berkhout, Melissa Leach, Ian Scoones risk, uncertainty and precaution - some instrumental implications from the social sciences, Andy Stirling economics and sustainable development - what have we learnt, and what do we still need to learn?, Nick Hanley, Giles Atkinson deliberative democracy and environmental decision making, Richard Munton governance and the environment, John Vogler, Andrew Jordan after Seattle - what next for trade and environment?, Paul Ekins governing natural resources - institutional adaptation and resistance, W. Neil Adger sustainable business organizations?, Anja Schaefer, Andrea Coulson, Ken Green, Steve New, Jim Skea inducing, shaping, modulating - perspectives on technology and environmental policy, Frans Berkhout, Andy Gouldson.

Analysing Institutional Strategies for Environmental Policy Integration: The Case of EU Enterprise Policy

The aspiration to integrate environmental concerns into all areas of policy has long served as a rhetorical reference point in the environmental debate. But only recently has the objective of environmental policy integration (EPI) been tackled through serious institutional reforms. Although this has led to a rise of academic interest in the issue, much conceptual work on EPI remains to be done. This paper draws on the policy studies literature on ecological modernization to develop a framework for the analysis and evaluation of institutional strategies for EPI, arguing that they can be fruitfully evaluated on the basis of four specific functions of EPI: agenda setting, horizontal communication, capacity building and policy learning. The application of the framework to the Cardiff process in EU enterprise policy shows that its impact has varied in relation to different functions of integration.

Are EMS environmentally effective? The link between environmental management systems and environmental performance in European companies

Based on the analysis of a large dataset on the environmental performance of European companies in five industrial sectors, this paper examines the question of whether the presence of an environmental management system (EMS) has a positive impact on the eco-efficiency of companies. It begins with a review of evidence about the link between EMS and environmental performance in business organisations, finding that, despite much research, there is still little quantitative evidence. The second part of the paper uses three independent statistical methods (simple correlations, Jaggi-Freedman indices and a ‘trend differences’ approach) to assess whether companies and production sites with EMS perform better than those without and whether performance improves after an EMS has been introduced. The paper shows that there is currently no evidence that EMS have a consistent and significant positive impact on environmental performance. Policy action based on the simple assumption that companies with an EMS perform better than those without therefore seems inappropriate.

Rationales for adaptation in EU climate change policies

Abstract This article sets out a series of rationales for public policy related to adaptation to the impacts of climatic change in the EU. It begins by arguing that both mitigation and adaptation are necessary parts of a coordinated policy response to the problem of climatic change. However, the ‘problem structure’ of adaptation is significantly different from that of mitigation. For instance, adaptation may generate private benefits that are likely to be experienced over the short term, relative to benefits associated with the impacts of mitigation actions which are public and experienced over the longer term. This divergence influences public policy rationales for adaptation and poses challenges for the integration of mitigation and adaptation in climate policies. Five key challenges facing climate adaptation are identified, and these are used as a basis for proposing rationales for policy action on climate adaptation. These relate to: information provision and research; early warning and disaster relief; facilitating adaptation options; regulating the distributional impacts of adaptation; and regulating infrastructures. The article concludes by arguing that the real integration problem for adaptation policy relates to how it is embedded in sectoral policies such as agriculture and transport, rather than how to achieve integration with mitigation policies.

Negotiating Environmental Change

This book by leading researchers presents a critical review of debates in environmental social science over the past decade. Three broad areas are covered in ten chapters: the problems of scientific uncertainty and its role in shaping environmental policy and decisions; the development of institutional frameworks for governing natural resources; and the link between economic and technological change and the environment. The book begins with an overview essay examining how perspectives across environmental social science have shifted over the past decade and looking forward to the emergence of new research agendas.