The ‘co’ in co-production of climate action: Challenging boundaries within and between science,policy and practice

Effective action taken against climate change must find ways to unite scientific and practice-based knowledges associated with the various stakeholders who see themselves as invested in the global delivery of climate governance. Political decision-makers, climate scientists and practitioners approach this challenge from what are often radically different perspectives and experiences. While considerable work has been done to develop the idea of ‘co-production’ in the development of climate action outputs, questions remain over how to best unite the contrasting epistemological traditions and norms associated with different stakeholders. Drawing on the existing literatures on climate action co-production and from translational perspectives on the science-policy interface, in this paper we develop the concept of ‘boundary agency’. Defining this as the agency ‘possessed’ when willing and able to translate between different epistemological communities invested in a similar policy and governance challenge such as climate change, we offer it as a useful means to reflect on participants’ understanding of the ‘co’ in co-production. This is in contrast to the more established (often academic-led) focus on what it is that is being produced by co-production processes. We draw from two complementary empirical studies, which explicitly encouraged i) engagement and ii) reflection on cross-boundary co-production between climate action stakeholders from different backgrounds. Reflecting on the two studies, we discuss the benefits of (and barriers to) encouraging more active and sustained engagement between climate action stakeholders so as to try to actively blur the boundaries between science and policy and, in doing so, invent new epistemological communities of practice.     

Adapting to changes in volcanic behaviour: Formal and informal interactions for enhanced risk management at Tungurahua Volcano,Ecuador

This paper provides an example of how communities can adapt to extreme forms of environmental change and uncertainty over the longer term. We analyse the interactions between scientists, communities and risk managers and examine the interpretation and communication of uncertain scientific information during a long-lived volcanic eruption in Tungurahua, Ecuador. This is complemented with a detailed study of the eruptions of 2006 and 2014, which exemplifies the complexity of interactions during periods of heightened volcanic activity. Our study describes how a ‘shadow network’ has developed outside of, but in interaction with, the formal risk management institutions in Ecuador, improving decision-making in response to heightened volcanic activity.The findings suggest that the interactions have facilitated important adaptations in the scientific advisory response during eruptions (near-real-time interpretation of the volcanic hazards), in hazard communication, and in the evacuation processes. Improved communication between stakeholders and the establishment of thresholds for evacuations have created an effective voluntary evacuation system unique to Tungurahua, allowing people to continue to maintain their livelihoods during heightened volcanic activity and associated periods of uncertainty. Understanding how shadow networks act to minimise the negative consequences of volcanic activity provides valuable insights for increasing societal resilience to other types of hazards.     

Science-based stakeholder dialogues: Theories and tools

Science-based stakeholder dialogues are structured communication processes linking scientists with societal actors, such as representatives of companies, NGOs, governments, and the wider public. Stakeholders possess knowledge needed by scientists to better comprehend, represent and analyse global change problems as well as decision-makers’, managers’ and other stakeholders’ mental models. We will examine the relevance of three theoretical frameworks for science-based stakeholder dialogues in the context of sustainability science. These are Rational Actor Paradigm, Bayesian Learning and Organisational Learning. All three contribute to a better theoretical framework for dialogue practice and the understanding of stakeholders as actors in society and in research in particular. Furthermore, these theories are important for tool development. A combination of analytical and communication tools is recommended to facilitate stakeholder dialogues. The paper refers to examples of dialogue practice gained in the European Climate Forum (ECF).     

Drought and the future of rural communities: Opportunities and challenges for climate change adaptation in regional Victoria,Australia

Australia's vulnerability to climate variability and change has been highlighted by the recent drought (i.e. the Big Dry or Millennium Drought), and also recent flooding across much of eastern Australia during 2011 and 2012. There is also the possibility that the frequency, intensity and duration of droughts may increase due to anthropogenic climate change, stressing the need for robust drought adaptation strategies. This study investigates the socio-economic impacts of drought, past and present drought adaptation measures, and the future adaptation strategies required to deal with projected impacts of climate change. The qualitative analysis presented records the actual experiences of drought and other climatic extremes and helps advance knowledge of how best to respond and adapt to such conditions, and how this might vary between different locations, sectors and communities. It was found that more effort is needed to address the changing environment and climate, by shifting from notions of ‘drought-as-crisis’ towards acknowledging the variable availability of water and that multi-year droughts should not be unexpected, and may even become more frequent. Action should also be taken to revalue the farming enterprise as critical to our environmental, economic and cultural well-being and there was also strong consensus that the value of water should be recognised in a more meaningful way (i.e. not just in economic terms). Finally, across the diverse stakeholders involved in the research, one point was consistently reiterated: that ‘it's not just drought’. Exacerbating the issues of climate impacts on water security and supply is the complexity of the agriculture industry, global economics (in particular global markets and the recent/ongoing global financial crisis), and demographic changes (decreasing and ageing populations) which are currently occurring across most rural communities. The social and economic issues facing rural communities are not just a product of drought or climate change – to understand them as such would underestimate the extent of the problems and inhibit the ability to coordinate the holistic, cross-agency approach needed for successful climate change adaptation in rural communities.     

A linked vulnerability and resilience framework for adaptation pathways in remote disadvantaged communities

We develop a systems framework for exploring adaptation pathways to climate change among people in remote and marginalized regions. The framework builds on two common and seemingly paradoxical narratives about people in remote regions. The first is recognition that people in remote regions demonstrate significant resilience to climate and resource variability, and may therefore be among the best equipped to adapt to climate change. The second narrative is that many people in remote regions are chronically disadvantaged and therefore are among the most vulnerable to climate change impacts. These narratives, taken in isolation and in extremis, can have significant maladaptive policy and practice implications. From a systems perspective, both narratives may be valid, because they form elements of latent and dominant feedback loops that require articulation for a nuanced understanding of vulnerability-reducing and resilience-building responses in a joint framework. Through literature review and community engagement across three remote regions on different continents, we test the potential of the framework to assist dialogue about adaptation pathways in remote marginalized communities. In an adaptation pathway view, short-term responses to vulnerability can risk locking in a pathway that increases specific resilience but creates greater vulnerability in the long-term. Equally, longer-term actions towards increasing desirable forms of resilience need to take account of short-term realities to respond to acute and multiple needs of marginalized remote communities. The framework was useful in uniting vulnerability and resilience narratives, and broadening the scope for adaptation policy and action on adaptation pathways for remote regions.     

Governing resilience building in Thailand's tourism-dependent coastal communities: Conceptualising stakeholder agency in social-ecological systems

In current scientific efforts to harness complementarity between resilience and vulnerability theory, one response is an ‘epistemological shift’ towards an evolutionary, learning based conception of the ‘systems-actor’ relation in social-ecological systems. In this paper, we contribute to this movement regarding the conception of stakeholder agency within social-ecological systems. We examine primary evidence from the governance of post-disaster recovery and disaster risk reduction efforts in Thailand's coastal tourism-dependent communities following the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Through an emerging storyline from stakeholders, we construct a new framework for conceptualising stakeholder agency in social-ecological systems, which positions the notion of resilience within a conception of governance as a negotiated normative process. We conclude that if resilience theory is proposed as the preferred approach by which disaster risk reduction is framed and implemented, it needs to acknowledge much more explicitly the role of stakeholder agency and the processes through which legitimate visions of resilience are generated.     

Testing resilience thinking in a poverty context: Experience from the Niger River basin

Resilience thinking is an important addition to the range of frameworks and approaches that can be used to understand and manage complex social–ecological systems like small-scale fisheries. However, it is yet to lead to better environmental or development outcomes for fisheries stakeholders in terms of food security, improved livelihoods and ecological sustainability. This paper takes an empirical approach by focusing on the fundamentals of resilience thinking to evaluate its usefulness in developing relevant management interventions in small-scale fisheries in the Niger River Basin in West Africa. The paper presents the outputs of a participatory assessment exercise where both fishery communities and local experts were involved at two different scales. The resilience frame used was designed to facilitate the identification of socially defined thresholds that help delineate the desirability of the current system configuration and provides a diagnosis framework that tailors management solutions to problems in local context. The analysis highlights some key contributions from resilience thinking to the challenge of diagnosis in small-scale fisheries management in developing countries, as well as important contributions that emerge from taking a pragmatic and critical approach to its application.     

Governing epidemics in an age of complexity: Narratives,politics and pathways to sustainability

This paper elaborates a ‘pathways approach’ to addressing the governance challenges posed by the dynamics of complex, coupled, multi-scale systems, while incorporating explicit concern for equity, social justice and the wellbeing of poor and marginalised groups. It illustrates the approach in relation to current policy challenges of dealing with epidemics and so-called ‘emerging infectious diseases’ such as avian influenza and haemorrhagic fevers, which involve highly dynamic, cross-scale, often-surprising viral–social–political–ecological interactions. Amidst complexity, we show how different actors in the epidemics field produce particular narratives which frame systems and their dynamics in different ways, promote particular goals and values, and justify particular pathways of disease response. These range from ‘outbreak narratives’ emphasising threat to global populations, to alternative but often marginalised narratives variously emphasising long-term structural, land use and environmental change, local knowledge and livelihood goals. We highlight tendencies – supported by cognitive, institutional and political pressures – for powerful actors and institutions to ‘close down’ around narratives that emphasise stability, underplaying longer term, less controllable dynamics. Arguing that governance approaches need to ‘open up’ to embrace strategies for resilience and robustness in relation to epidemics, we outline what some of the routes towards this might involve, and what the resulting governance models might look like. Key are practices and arrangements that involve flexibility, diversity, adaptation, learning and reflexivity, as well as highlighting and supporting alternative pathways within a progressive politics of sustainability.     

‘This was different’: transferring climate mitigation knowledge practices south to south with the MAPS programme

This article is a case study of the Mitigation Action Plans and Scenarios programme (MAPS) which worked in climate change mitigation and development policy-making spaces in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and South Africa from 2010–2015. The MAPS programme was focused on achieving change in the commitment of southern decision makers to mitigate against climate change through government-mandated, stakeholder processes which generated evidence making a case for a low carbon transition. The article draws on reflective materials generated in the last year of the project. The value of MAPS was found in the well-tested data and evidence-driven scenario building; locally specific and country-driven processes; a culture of knowledge sharing through facilitated communities of practice; the role of professional facilitation in process design and in conducting stakeholder processes; shared experiences of working in the south, and particularly with cultural differences and conflict; and new ways of working south–south with each other, and with donors. These MAPS programme experiences stood in contrast to previous north–south knowledge sharing involvements. Theoretically, the article asks whether MAPS represents southern theory-making (after Connell, 2007). It concludes that through the action-oriented, facilitated co-production way of working on climate change in the south, MAPS represents an understanding of southern theory that challenges the orthodoxy of global knowledge production. MAPS emphasizes the need for theorizing in, and of, the south, and connecting policy and practices.

Key policy insights

• Climate change mitigation work in the south faces poorly resourced, fragmented, under-capacitated governance structures, often in conflicted settings.

• Given conflicted settings, skilled facilitation is an integral part of knowledge-making processes.

• Strong local communities of practice, who undertake learning-by-doing and are connected to ‘stubborn’ development realities, are also key to knowledge-making.

• Intentional co-production of data and evidence enable peer-to-peer learning and the trust-building which is vital to strong communities of practice.

     

Adaptive capacity and its assessment

This paper reviews the concept of adaptive capacity and various approaches to assessing it, particularly with respect to climate variability and change. I find that adaptive capacity is a relatively under-researched topic within the sustainability science and global change communities, particularly since it is uniquely positioned to improve linkages between vulnerability and resilience research. I identify opportunities for advancing the measurement and characterization of adaptive capacity by combining insights from both vulnerability and resilience frameworks, and I suggest several assessment approaches for possible future development that draw from both frameworks and focus on analyzing the governance, institutions, and management that have helped foster adaptive capacity in light of recent climatic events.     

Situated adaptation: Tackling the production of vulnerability through transformative action in Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone

Drawing attention to the production of vulnerability across scales in Sri Lanka, we contribute to knowledge of why certain people and social groups are vulnerable. We build our contribution on the theoretical application of ‘situated adaptation’. A situated analytical approach identifies, assesses, and responds to the everyday realities and politics of those living in climate changed environments. It highlights uneven geographies of vulnerability and opportunity, while identifying new imaginations and possibilities for transformative action that counter the production of vulnerability. We illustrate the utility of ‘situated adaptation’ by filling an empirical gap relating to experiences of political-economic and environmental change in Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone. We detail situated experiences by drawing on field research in the Anuradhapura District, revealing how the lives and livelihoods of farmer participants are structured by a productivity-vulnerability paradox. We demonstrate how a prevalent adaptation-development paradigm (whereby development and adaptation programs co-exist in theory and practice) is unable to address the structural drivers of vulnerability in Sri Lanka’s Dry Zone. A situated adaptation approach both explains why this is the case and highlights opportunities for alternative transformative actions, potentially identifying a more democratic and egalitarian politics of co-determining socionatural change.     

Co-productive governance: A relational framework for adaptive governance

Adaptive governance focuses our attention on the relationships between science and management, whereby the so-called ‘gaps’ between these groups are seen to hinder effective adaptive responses to biophysical change. Yet the relationships between science and governance, knowledge and action, remain under theorized in discussions of adaptive governance, which largely focuses on abstract design principles or preferred institutional arrangements. In contrast, the metaphor of co-production highlights the social and political processes through which science, policy, and practice co-evolve. Co-production is invoked as a normative goal (Mitchell et al., 2004) and analytical lens (Jasanoff, 2004a, Jasanoff, 2004b), both of which provide useful insight into the processes underpinning adaptive governance. This paper builds on and integrates these disparate views to reconceptualize adaptive governance as a process of co-production. I outline an alternative conceptual framing, ‘co-productive governance’, that articulates the context, knowledge, process, and vision of governance. I explore these ideas through two cases of connectivity conservation, which draws on conservation science to promote collaborative cross-scale governance. This analysis highlights the ways in which the different contexts of these cases produced very different framings and responses to the same propositions of science and governance. Drawing on theoretical and empirical material, co-productive governance moves beyond long standing debates that institutions can be rationally crafted or must emerge from context resituate adaptive governance in a more critical and contextualized space. This reframing focuses on the process of governance through an explicit consideration of how normative considerations shape the interactions between knowledge and power, science and governance.     

中国冰冻圈变化的适应研究：进展与展望

冰冻圈变化的适应研究是冰冻圈科学领域的新兴研究方向,是当今自然科学与社会科学交叉融合跨学科集成研究的典型代表。起步于2007年的中国冰冻圈变化适应研究,经历了早期的探索,研究重点由评价脆弱性发展为量化冰冻圈变化的影响,形成以影响/风险—脆弱性—适应全链条的完善的研究体系,研究方法突破传统的指标体系赋权法的不足,初步实现了定量化,有机结合影响/风险、脆弱性、适应三方面的研究结果,使冰冻圈变化的适应措施由偏重宏观性、普适性开始转向更有针对性。未来中国冰冻圈变化的适应研究应拓展、完善和深化现有的理论体系,构建冰冻圈与社会经济耦合模型,科学量化冰冻圈全要素变化的影响,建立不同利益相关者与科学家共同参与的研究新模式,科学有效应对与适应冰冻圈变化及其影响。     

Knowledge exchange and policy influence in a marine resource governance network

Few case studies have considered the impact of network structure on the resilience of complex resource management systems that operate over large spatial scales. To help fill this knowledge gap our study examined two types of relational ties—knowledge exchange and policy influence—within a marine wildlife co-management network in Northern Australia. We conducted interviews and follow-up surveys with key-informant stakeholders in dugong and marine turtle management and used these data to perform social network analysis for the dugong and turtle co-management network. The network structure of this marine governance system supports extensive cross-scale information flow, but with a disproportionate amount of top-down policy influence compared with knowledge accumulation, an arrangement that may hinder evidence-based decision making. We developed a typological ‘map’ of stakeholder roles in the network to characterize each stakeholder's contribution of knowledge and ability to influence policy, helping to identify gaps or overlaps in network linkages. Improving communication links between knowledge producers and policy makers is important for evidence based decision making throughout the management network, while addressing overlapping management roles and functions should help decrease conflict in the system. These improvements would increase social-ecological resilience in the management network by providing better protection for marine species while meeting the needs of diverse stakeholders.     

Promiscuous corroboration and climate change translation: A case study from the Marshall Islands

Public knowledge of global warming depends on the translation of climate science from specialist communities to citizens, and from scientific language to the vernacular; yet, no two cultures or languages being perfectly commensurable, this process of translation necessarily entails a transformation of the climate change concept. I explore this transformation, and the unexpected consequences it spells for local acceptance and understanding of climate science, through a case study in the Marshall Islands, a low-lying nation endangered by sea level rise and other climate change impacts. Various framings of this threat have been communicated to Marshall Islanders via local media, NGO, and government outlets. ‘Climate’ is here translated as Marshallese mejatoto, the closest equivalent in this Austronesian language. Yet mejatoto refers not only to climate/weather but also to the environment or cosmos in general, including the social sphere, a result of the Marshallese conceptual conflation of ‘nature’ and ‘culture.’ As a result, locals point to processes as disparate, and un-‘climatic,’ as a solar eclipse, accelerating time, and weakening tradition as examples of, and evidence for, climate change. In a society already vigorously possessed of narratives of change, this ‘promiscuous corroboration’ makes the prediction of climate change extremely easy to trust. While this ‘mistranslation’ carries with it certain dangers, when viewed instead as a reinterpretation it is rife with opportunity. Climate change communicators both abroad and at home must therefore carefully consider the transformations introduced by various translations of ‘climate change,’ yet also appreciate ‘mistranslation’ for its ability to render concepts meaningful to local actors and to stimulate citizen–scientist dialogue.     

Wildfire preparedness,community cohesion and social–ecological systems

The consequences of wildfires are felt in susceptible communities around the globe on an annual basis. Climate change predictions in places like the south-east of Australia and western United States suggest that wildfires may become more frequent and more intense with global climate change. Compounding this issue is progressive urban development at the peri-urban fringe (wildland–urban interface), where continued infrastructure development and demographic changes are likely to expose more people and property to this potentially disastrous natural hazard. Preparing well in advance of the wildfire season is seen as a fundamental behaviour that can both reduce community wildfire vulnerability and increase hazard resilience – it is an important element of adaptive capacity that allows people to coexist with the hazardous environment in which they live. We use household interviews and surveys to build and test a substantive model that illustrates how social cohesion influences the decision to prepare for wildfire. We demonstrate that social cohesion, particularly community characteristics like ‘sense of community’ and ‘collective problem solving’, are community-based resources that support both the adoption of mechanical preparations, and the development of cognitive abilities and capacities that reduce vulnerability and enhance resilience to wildfire. We use the results of this work to highlight opportunities to transfer techniques and approaches from natural hazards research to climate change adaptation research to explore how the impacts attributed to the social components of social–ecological systems can be mitigated more effectively.     

Resilience compromised: Producing vulnerability to climate and market among quinoa producers in Southwestern Bolivia

Climate change is already affecting rural communities along the high Andean plateau, but it is just one of many stresses that Andean people experience on a regular basis. This paper examines the experiences of quinoa farmers in Southwestern Bolivia as they faced the overlapping crises of protracted drought and market disruption in 2017. Drawing on political ecologies of resilience, this paper argues that the ability of rural people to cope with this double exposure was already compromised by ecological and social vulnerabilities produced through the development trajectories of the previous two decades. These development strategies generated three overlapping processes: 1) neoliberal entanglements involving specialization in quinoa production, marketization, and individualization of livelihoods in ways that undermined collective action; 2) new relationships of debt that tied households to monetized response paths and undermined flexibility; and 3) the degradation of soils through extensification, overproduction, and industrialization of quinoa production. This paper argues that while climate and market disruptions are not to be dismissed, we must historicize the double exposure to also ask how resilience and vulnerability to such challenges are generated in the first place.     

Engagement,involvement and empowerment: Three realms of a coproduction framework for climate services

While knowledge coproduction between climate scientists and climate information users has become a common theme in the climate services discourse, the interface between climate service providers and users is an aspect of climate services projects that still calls for more attention. This is due in part to the dominance of the physical sciences in these projects, as well as the prevalence of an instrumental and narrow interpretation of coproduction. Following up on the World Meteorological Organisation’s Guidance on Good Practices for Climate Services User Engagement, and incorporating insights from the social and human sciences, we develop a coproduction framework for climate services to help establish a smooth and effective interface between scientists and stakeholders. This framework is intended for research and innovation projects developing climate knowledge and services. The coproduction framework comprises three realms: (i) engagement using various communication channels; (ii) involvement through interviews, workshops and webinars; and (iii) empowerment of stakeholders and scientists through focused relationships. This incremental participatory process involves stakeholders in increasingly profound ways: from a broad stakeholder group identified through awareness-raising campaigns, on to potential users with whom we exchange knowledge, and then to a set of “champion users” who co-develop the service and pioneer its use in decision-making processes. This paper illustrates the application of the coproduction framework in PRIMAVERA, an EU H2020-funded project for designing, running and testing new high-resolution global climate models and evaluating their outputs. While PRIMAVERA provided ground breaking scientific findings that could potentially benefit various stakeholders and support climate risk assessment activities, these results are highly specialised and their added value has yet to be assessed. Accordingly, the user engagement component of the project faced the challenging task of both motivating stakeholders’ participation in the project and motivating future users of potential services based on PRIMAVERA data. The trial of the framework in PRIMAVERA provided key lessons for enhancing coproduction in research and innovation projects. We demonstrate how the role of scientists gradually shifted in this coproduction cycle from masters of knowledge(Roux et al., 2017) to co-learners, and how the involvement of the project’s interdisciplinary team and their interaction with stakeholders served to move the project towards transdisciplinary knowledge production.     

Reflexive adaptation for resilient water services: Lessons for theory and practice

‘Adaptive management’ concern attempts to manage complex social-ecological and socio-technical systems in nimble ways to enhance their resilience. In this paper, three forms of adaptive management are identified, ‘scientific’ forms focused on collation of scientific data in response to management experiments, but more recent developments adding processes of collaboration as well as emphasising the need for reflexivity, that is, conscious processes of opening up debates to different perspectives and values. While reflexive adaptive management has been increasingly discussed in theory, there is a lack of examples of what its application means in practice.As a response, this paper examines an ‘Adaptive Planning Process’ (APP), seeking to apply reflexive adaptive management as a means to improve climate resilience in the UK water sector. The APP’s three inter linked workshops – Aspiration, Scenario and Roadmapping – were co-developed and trialled in a water utility. By describing and justifying the choices made in the development of the APP, the paper aims to reveal some of the challenges that arise when trying to design processes that achieve reflexive adaptation.The paper concludes that, if applied to planning for climate change, reflexive adaptation has the potential to explore multiple value positions, highlight different potential futures and acknowledge (and hence, partly address) power differentials, and therefore to offer the possibility of real change. On the basis of the trial, we argue that through tapping the depth and breadth of internal knowledge the APP process created the potential for decision making to be joined up across different parts of the utility, and hence offering new strategies and routes for addressing uncertainties and delivering more resilient water services.