How to push which button: Understanding the potential of climate games through the lens of social action theories

Different presents and futures of Climate Change are too large or difficult to fully grasp. Games are a potential help with this: They can contribute to futuring capacities, including systems knowledge, throughout the population, and disseminate experiential knowledge of realities related to Climate Change. They can grant it a place in public arenas as well as in discourse at large. It seems, then, that we should welcome the recent rise in Climate Games. In this article, we set out to first map the games, commercial and ‘serious’, that relate to Climate Change. We present some ‘good practices’ in Climate Games. Then, we present a typology that covers the existing Climate Games. Finally, we lay out implicit notions of social actions that seem to underlie these games and their goals regarding Climate Games. We find six types of Climate Change applications in games: Casual, Systems Management, Knowledge, Experience, Subversive, and ‘Backdrop’. These types seem to want to do good by influencing mechanisms that guide social action. But they appeal to this based on implicit premises; each type can be linked to at least one of these different theories of social action in sociology: (anti)hegemonic thinking; discourse theory; habitus; structuration/risk assessment; Rational Action Theory; ‘culture as values’; ‘culture as institutions’, and Weber’s types of social action. Providing a model to assess goals in Climate Games can help overcome the ‘awareness problem’ and allow game designers and -funders to make an informed choice on the validity of the mechanisms they wish to tap into

Future socioeconomic changes

Development of socio-economic scenarios and translating them into suitable storylines and provide an overview of potential data to be used for a quantification of future disease vulnerabilitie

Participatory scenarios as a tool to link science and policy on food security under climate change in East Africa

How effective are multi-stakeholder scenarios building processes to bring diverse actors together and create a policy-making tool to support sustainable development and promote food security in the developing world under climate change? The effectiveness of a participatory scenario development process highlights the importance of ‘boundary work’ that links actors and organizations involved in generating knowledge on the one hand, and practitioners and policymakers who take actions based on that knowledge on the other. This study reports on the application of criteria for effective boundary work to a multi-stakeholder scenarios process in East Africa that brought together a range of regional agriculture and food systems actors. This analysis has enabled us to evaluate the extent to which these scenarios were seen by the different actors as credible, legitimate and salient, and thus more likely to be useful. The analysis has shown gaps and opportunities for improvement on these criteria, such as the quantification of scenarios, attention to translating and communicating the results through various channels and new approaches to enable a more inclusive and diverse group of participants. We conclude that applying boundary work criteria to multi-stakeholder scenarios processes can do much to increase the likelihood of developing sustainable development and food security policies that are more appropriate

Exploring scenario guided pathways for food assistance in Tuscany

A growing number of people in high income countries, also from the segments of population once considered secure, seek food assistance. Diverse food aid initiatives and practices are developed by a range of actors to tackle food poverty; alongside traditional difficulties, new challenges emerge from welfare expenditure cuts, the reorganization of EU Funds for the Most Deprived (FEAD) and from the spreading of surplus food recovery practices by private companies. Based on a preliminary analysis on food assistance practices in Tuscany (Italy), it emerged that operators involved in food assistance activities are reflecting upon future developments: how is food assistance re-thinking its role to deal with the challenges posed by the current context of change? This work adopts a participatory scenario approach to examine pathways that can be considered robust under uncertainties in the planning context of food assistance. We combine the strengths of back-casted planning, which develops desirable pathways for the future, and explorative scenarios that describe plausible future contexts. Results comprise the definition of shared priority themes and plans tested across a set of downscaled scenarios. The methodology provides a promising learning tool to engage with stakeholders and foster a creative future oriented thinking approach to food assistance system’s vulnerability and resilience

Approaches through which anticipation informs climate governance in South Asia

This report presents the RE-IMAGINE research in one of its four regions: South Asia. RE-IMAGINE builds on climate foresight expertise of the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) Program and analyses the role of foresight in climate governance across the globe. Scenarios and many other methods and tools are used today to imagine climate futures and develop strategies for realizing new futures while governing climate change. With the proliferation of these processes in sustainability-related research and planning contexts, scrutiny of their role in steering climate actions in the present becomes increasingly important. How can the benefits and challenges of these processes of anticipation be better understood as governance interventions? At the same time, research into anticipatory climate governance processes in the Global South has remained very limited, while these regions are most vulnerable to climate change. The RE-IMAGINE report therefore examines processes of anticipation in four regions of the Global South. The research question we answer in this report is: ‘through what approaches are diverse processes of anticipation used to govern climate change in diverse South Asian contexts?’. In order to answer this question, we first examine what methods and tools are used to anticipate climate futures and their role in climate policy and decision-making. We then closely examine three case studies to understand their approaches to anticipatory governance. Additionally, we present the results of two regional meetings with stakeholders where we discussed the challenges that exist in each country to practice anticipatory climate governance and the opportunities to strengthen capacities in this field. Finally, we present recommendations for strengthening processes of anticipatory climate governance in the region

Anticipatory climate governance in Central America

Anticipating the possible impacts of climate change has become a key global focus. Scenarios and many other methods and tools are used today to imagine climate futures and develop strategies for realizing new futures while governing climate change. With the proliferation of these processes in sustainability-related research and planning contexts, scrutiny of their role in steering decision-making becomes increasingly important. How can the benefits and challenges of these processes of anticipation be better understood as governance interventions? Research into anticipatory climate governance processes in the Global South has remained very limited, while these regions are most vulnerable to climate change. This report therefore examines processes of anticipation in Central America. The research question we answer is: ‘through what approaches are diverse processes of anticipation used to govern climate change in diverse Central American contexts?’. In order to answer this question, we first examine what methods and tools are used to anticipate climate futures and their role in climate policy and decision-making. We then closely examine three case studies to understand their approaches to anticipatory governance. Additionally, we present the results of two regional meetings with stakeholders where we discussed the challenges that exist in each country to practice anticipatory climate governance and the opportunities to strengthen capacities in this field. Finally, we present recommendations for strengthening processes of anticipatory climate governance in the region

Moving from Knowledge to Action: Blogging research and outcome highlights

This blog book tells the story of CCAFS research theme ‘Linking Knowledge with Action’; its approach and lessons learned throughout the years, especially 2014, while illustrating its many achievements through blogs and photos

Cambiando el paradigma: las narrativas del futuro guían el desarrollo de la INDC de Costa Rica

Este resumen de política presenta el proceso y los principales resultados del desarrollo de la INDC de Costa Rica a través de un proceso participativo en el que la construcción y uso de escenarios futuros fue el primer paso de un diálogo nacional para definir, probar y mejorar las medidas de mitigación para la reducción de las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero

Shifting the paradigm: Narratives of the future guide the development of Costa Rica's INDC

This policy brief summarizes the process and main results of the development of Costa Rica´s INDC through a participatory process in which the building and use of future scenarios was the first step in a national dialogue to define, test and improve mitigation measures to lower emissions of greenhouse gases

Lessons in theory of change: monitoring, learning and evaluating Knowledge to Action

In 2010 the research theme on Knowledge to Action (K2A) at CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) developed a plan of work, using a log frame structure. Our objective was to explore and jointly apply approaches and methods that enhance K2A linkages with a wide range of partners at local, regional and global levels. Since then, the K2A theme has supported a variety of projects with the potential to catalyse action from research-generated knowledge. These projects were cutting edge; high risk but with potential for real impact should they succeed