What do we mean when we say climate change is urgent?

Recent discussions of climate change in multiple domains—the academic literature, the popular press, political movements, and international climate policy regime—have increasingly framed the phenomenon as a “crisis,” an “emergency,” or an “urgent” situation. In this paper, we contextualize the time pressure of climate change in the broader social science literature, perform bibliometric and discourse analyses of this framing, and explore potential implications of this trend for climate decision making. While the increased prevalence of time pressure terms is arguably part and parcel of modernity, these terms are in general not synonymous. In the context of climate decision making, we find that “urgency” functions as a boundary object relaying the internalization of time pressure between (1) the academic literature and the international climate change policy regime and (2) political movements and the popular press; especially as construed in these latter domains, “crisis” and “emergency” connote time pressure but so too generate a constellation of other affective and cognitive states. A review of a set of related literatures suggests that the time pressure framing of climate change affects the quantity and quality of information and the range of options (e.g., geoengineering) considered in choice processes for mitigation and adaptation actions, as well as the sequencing and timing of chosen plan elements; furthermore, these effects likely vary in both direction and magnitude with characteristics of the individuals or organizations in which they manifest. Taken as a whole, the crisis framing of climate change is likely to polarize beliefs and actions, especially in the absence of accompanying information about self-efficacy and hope

Climate Decision-Making

Climate change decision-making has emerged in recent decades as an area of research and practice, expanding on an earlier focus on climate policy. Defined as the study of decisions relevant for climate change, it draws on developments in decision science, particularly advances in the study of cognitive and deliberative processes in individuals and organizations. The effects of climate, economic, social, and other framings on decision-making have been studied, often showing that nonclimate frames can be as effective as, or more effective than, climate frames in promoting decision-making and action. The concept of urgency, linked to the ideas of climate crisis and climate emergency, has taken on importance in recent years. Research on climate decision-making has influenced numerous areas of climate action, including nudges and other behavioral interventions, corporate social responsibility, and Indigenous decision-making. Areas of transformational change, such as strategic retreat in the face of sea-level rise, are emerging

The existential risk space of climate change

Climate change is widely recognized as a major risk to societies and natural ecosystems but the high end of the risk, i.e., where risks become existential, is poorly framed, defined, and analyzed in the scientific literature. This gap is at odds with the fundamental relevance of existential risks for humanity, and it also limits the ability of scientific communities to engage with emerging debates and narratives about the existential dimension of climate change that have recently gained considerable traction. This paper intends to address this gap by scoping and defining existential risks related to climate change. We first review the context of existential risks and climate change, drawing on research in fields on global catastrophic risks, and on key risks and the so-called Reasons for Concern in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. We also consider how existential risks are framed in the civil society climate movement as well as what can be learned in this respect from the COVID-19 crisis. To better frame existential risks in the context of climate change, we propose to define them as those risks that threaten the existence of a subject, where this subject can be an individual person, a community, or nation state or humanity. The threat to their existence is defined by two levels of severity: conditions that threaten (1) survival and (2) basic human needs. A third level, well-being, is commonly not part of the space of existential risks. Our definition covers a range of different scales, which leads us into further defining six analytical dimensions: physical and social processes involved, systems affected, magnitude, spatial scale, timing, and probability of occurrence. In conclusion, we suggest that a clearer and more precise definition and framing of existential risks of climate change such as we offer here facilitates scientific analysis as well societal and political discourse and action

Framing climate change in frontline communities: anthropological insights on how mountain dwellers in the USA, Peru, and Italy adapt to glacier retreat

We report on anthropological research conducted in three mountain communities (in the USA, Italy and Peru), which have been directly affected by glacier retreat for over 40 years. Our mixed methods include ethnographic research, analysis of transcripts of interviews, focus groups and community meetings, and case studies of adaptation projects. Our findings indicate that local people are acute observers of change. They draw on two frames (climate change and community) in their discussions and projects but rely much more heavily on the latter frame. This pattern of drawing on the community frame, characteristic of all discussions, is most marked in the community meetings. The effectiveness of the community frame in supporting projects calls into question some widely shared notions about the role of belief in climate change as a crucial precondition for adaptation and challenges the “perceive–predict–act” model of climate change response

Understanding subjective well-being: perspectives from psychology and public health

Background Individual subjective well-being (SWB) is essential for creating and maintaining healthy, productive societies. The literature on SWB is vast and dispersed across multiple disciplines. However, few reviews have summarized the theoretical and empirical tenets of SWB literature across disciplinary boundaries. Methods We cataloged and consolidated SWB-related theories and empirical evidence from the fields of psychology and public health using a combination of online catalogs of scholarly articles and online search engines to retrieve relevant articles. For both theories and determinants/correlates of SWB, PubMed, PsychINFO, and Google Scholar were used to obtain relevant articles. Articles for the review were screened for relevance, varied perspectives, journal impact, geographic location of study, and topicality. A core theme of SWB empirical literature was the identification of SWB determinants/correlates, and over 100 research articles were reviewed and summarized for this review. Results We found that SWB theories can be classified into four groups: fulfillment and engagement theories, personal orientation theories, evaluative theories, and emotional theories. A critical analysis of the conflicts and overlaps between these theories reveals the lack of a coherent theoretical and methodological framework that would make empirical research systematically comparable. We found that determinants/correlates of SWB can be grouped into seven broad categories: basic demographics, socioeconomic status, health and functioning, personality, social support, religion and culture, and geography and infrastructure. However, these are rarely studied consistently or used to test theories. Conclusions The lack of a clear, unifying theoretical basis for categorizing and comparing empirical studies can potentially be overcome using an operationalizable criterion that focuses on the dimension of SWB studied, measure of SWB used, design of the study, study population, and types of determinants and correlates. From our review of the empirical literature on SWB, we found that the seven categories of determinants/correlates identified may potentially be used to improve the link between theory and empirical research, and that the overlap in the determinant/correlates as they relate to multiple theory categories may enable us to test theories in unison. However, doing so in the future would require a conscious effort by researchers in several areas, which are discussed

Intangible Cultural Heritage, Diverse Knowledge Systems and Climate Change

Human cultural diversity is reflected in many different ways of knowing, being, and doing, each with specific histories, positionalities, and connections to ecosystems, landscapes, and the world. Such diversity results in plural knowledge systems. This white paper describes the characteristics and complexity of knowledge systems in the context of climate change. It notes the deficiencies of action to date on climate change, which has largely rested on scientific knowledge, and discusses the importance of drawing on other knowledge systems, particularly Indigenous knowledge and local knowledge. This paper synthesises evidence highlighting that Indigenous knowledge systems and local knowledge systems are dynamic, contemporary, and actively applied worldwide. Although Indigenous knowledge and local knowledge systems continue to be politically marginalised, the recognition of their role in climate governance is essential. We consider plural knowledge systems and the interactions and potential collaborations between them, with a goal of informing how they can most constructively, equitably, and inclusively be conceptualised and addressed when discussing and generating knowledge about and responses to climate change

Placing diverse knowledge systems at the core of transformative climate research

We argue that solutions-based research must avoid treating climate change as a merely technical problem, recognizing instead that it is symptomatic of the history of European and North American colonialism. It must therefore be addressed by decolonizing the research process and transforming relations between scientific expertise and the knowledge systems of Indigenous Peoples and of local communities. Partnership across diverse knowledge systems can be a path to transformative change only if those systems are respected in their entirety, as indivisible cultural wholes of knowledge, practices, values and worldviews. This argument grounds our specific recommendations for governance at the local, national, and international scales. As concrete mechanisms to guide collaboration across knowledge systems, we propose a set of instruments based on the principles of consent, intellectual and cultural autonomy, and justice. We recommend these instruments as tools to ensure that collaborations across knowledge systems embody just partnerships in support of a decolonial transformation of relations between human communities and between humanity and the more-than-human world

Decolonizing climate change–heritage research

Climate change poses a threat to heritage globally. Decolonial approaches to climate change–heritage research and practice can begin to address systemic inequities, recognize the breadth of heritage and strengthen adaptation action globally.DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT: The underlying dataset for Fig. 1a is available open access from the supplemental material in ref. 5, and datasets for Fig. 1b,c from the UNESCO World Heritage List 2021 in ref. 32.The UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada; the FLAIR Fellowship Programme: a partnership between the African Academy of Sciences and the Royal Society funded by the UK government’s Global Challenges Research Fund; the Mapping Africa’s Endangered Archaeological Sites and Monuments project funded by Arcadia — a charitable fund of Lisbet Rausing and Peter Baldwin; the Leverhulme Trust Doctoral Training Scheme, hosted by Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute at the University of Southampton.https://www.nature.com/nclimatehj2023Historical and Heritage Studie

Enhancing the relevance of Shared Socioeconomic Pathways for climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability research

This paper discusses the role and relevance of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and the new scenarios that combine SSPs with representative concentration pathways (RCPs) for climate change impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability (IAV) research. It first provides an overview of uses of social–environmental scenarios in IAV studies and identifies the main shortcomings of earlier such scenarios. Second, the paper elaborates on two aspects of the SSPs and new scenarios that would improve their usefulness for IAV studies compared to earlier scenario sets: (i) enhancing their applicability while retaining coherence across spatial scales, and (ii) adding indicators of importance for projecting vulnerability. The paper therefore presents an agenda for future research, recommending that SSPs incorporate not only the standard variables of population and gross domestic product, but also indicators such as income distribution, spatial population, human health and governance