Social Science and Global Change

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Social Science and Global Change

• Diana Liverman, Director,
• Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University
• www.eci.ox.ac.uk
• Why social science and why it is difficult
• UK contributions and agendas
• ESRC/EU
• Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
• UK Energy Research Centre
• International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP)

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Why social sciences?

• Social science must be more than PR for earth
  sciences because
• Social uncertainties outweigh physical
• If we want emissions or vulnerabilities to change
  we must understand fundamentals of human
  behaviour and institutions
• The new carbon economy (trading etc.) is based on
  a set of fragile political institutions
• Results that change both natural science and
  policy
• Contributions to social science scholarship
  through new theory and methods
• Should we also engage the arts and humanities?

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Socioeconomic Scenarios SRES
Globalisation
A1 Balanced A1 Fossil A1 Technology
Emphasis on sustainability and equity
B1
Emphasis on material wealth
A2
B2
Regionalisation
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How has social science changed the framing of the
climate issue?

• Modelling driven by scenarios (e.g. SRES)
• Impacts depend on vulnerability and adaptation
• Costs influenced by discounting and valuation
• Responses framed by governance international
  regimes, non state actors (NGOs, business, local
  government, markets)
• Role of science in society through risk
  perceptions, social learning, deliberative and
  communication processes, notions of expertise

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Multiple perspectives on social explanation

• Environmental determinism (climate causes
  problems)
• Precipitation change gt Crop yields gt famine
• Malthusianism (population causes problems)
• Precipitation change gt Crop yields gt Population
  increase gt famine
• Cultural/human ecology (lack of information and
  human ingenuity causes problems)
• Precipitation change gt human perception and
  adaptation (technology, social organization) gt
  crop yields gt food availability
• Neoclassical economics (market failures cause
  problems)
• Market demand gt precipitation inputs (capital,
  labour) gt supply gt price gt food availability
• Political economy (capitalism causes problems)
• Poverty gt vulnerability gt (climate change) gt
  famine
• Constructivist (climate crisis is a human
  construct)
• Research and data cannot be neutral
• Science and media create idea of danger

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ESRC/EU and social sciences

• ESRC
• Global Environmental Change Programme from
  1991-2000
• Grants, fellowships, centres at UEA/UCL and
  Lancaster
• Environment and Human Behaviour Programme
• Centres competitions
• Tyndall Centre for Climate Research
• UK Energy Research Centre
• EU FP6
• Global change and ecosystems
• Sustainable energy and transport
• EU FP7
• Climate change, pollution and risks
• Examples ENSEMBLES, ADAM

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• A distributed centre with collaborative network
• Interdisciplinary research
• Active engagement with policy and creating
  dialogue with range of stakeholders
• Example of Phase I impact
• major role in IPCC FAR WG2 (impacts and
  adaptation, IA models)
• Provoking debate about decarbonising the UK (40
  house, DTQ, aviation)
• http//www.tyndall.ac.uk/

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Phase 2 2006-2009

• Informing climate policy how can international
  action on cc be effectively developed after 2012?
• Constructing energy futures what are the
  pathways to global de-carbonisation?
• Building resilience what are the limits to
  adaptation?
• Securing human welfare how can international
  development be sustained in a warming world?
• Delivering sustainable coasts how can shorelines
  be managed for the third millennium?
• Engineering urban systems how can cities grow
  whilst also reducing vulnerability and emissions?
• A Community Integrated Assessment System
• 5.6m UEA, Manchester, Southampton, Oxford,
  Sussex, Newcastle

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Assessing climate change uncertainties in
engineering decisions (Jim Hall, Newcastle)
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Interactive exploration of future flood risks
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CIAM global integrated assessment
E3MG socio-economic variables at a national scale
Low to intermediate complexity climate models
Economic downscaling
Climate downscaling
City-scale climate variables
Socio-economic variables at a city scale
Land use analysis and simulation
Scenarios of urban attributes and form
Assembly of impact assessment modules
Engagement with stakeholders to co-develop
adaptation and mitigation options
City emissions accounting tool
Emissions estimates for strategic options
Impacts estimates for strategic options
Spatial-temporal portfolio analysis
Spatial-temporal portfolios for adaptation and
mitigation
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UK Energy Research Centre
http//www.ukerc.ac.uk
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International Human Dimensions Programme on
Global Environmental Change (IHDP)
http//www.ihdp.org/

• IHDP has seven major international science
  projects
•  Global Environmental Change and Human Security
  (GECHS)
•  Industrial Transformation (IT)
•  Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental
  Change (IDGEC)
•  Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC)
•  Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone
  (LOICZ)
•  Urbanization
•  Global Land Project (starting 2005)
• co-sponsored by the International
  Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP)
• New Joint Projects with ESSP (IGBP/WCRP/IHDP/Diver
  sitas)
• Food (GECFAS)
• Carbon (GCP)
• Water (GWSP)
• Human Health (planned)

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IHDP Urbanisation Core Project

• Main Research Foci
• Urban processes that contribute to global
  environmental change. This section includes
  questions on lifestyle and consumption patterns,
  urban land use and land cover change as well as
  effects of social and biophysical
  teleconnections.
• Pathways through which global environmental
  change affects the urban system. This section
  explores the consequences of global environmental
  changes on human behaviour and interactions,
  their contribution to shaping the built
  environment and their impact on the resource base
  upon which urban systems rely.
• Interactions and responses within the urban
  system. This section poses questions on how
  interactions between the human and the physical
  systems shape the impact of and the responses to
  global environmental change as well as their
  consequences for urban livelihoods.
• Consequences of interactions within urban systems
  on global environmental change. This section
  focuses on the feedbacks of interactions within
  the urban system to various components of global
  environmental change.
• US Karen Seto and Roberto Sanchez (Stanford-UCR)
• UK David Simon (UL-RH)

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Tyndall Centre