This article analyses the narratives of impact-driven transition research in the field of sustainability studies. It reconstructs patterns of narrations at a discourse level. Departing from the understanding that narrating is a fundamental mode of communication and education, this contribution is ultimately driven by the commitment to understand how narrativity can be improved in order to reach more effective rhetoric for sustainability research. The article starts by describing the dilemma sustainability researchers might find themselves in regarding their position vis-à-vis society and politics. This dilemma seems to shape the narratives researchers use for describing their work. After conceptualizing narratives on a structural level, findings from a comprehensive qualitative interview study are presented and discussed. We find that sustainability researchers can be clustered in five different types, depending on their affinity or distance to real-world sustainability processes, their propensity to either incremental reforms or transformative change and the relationship between environmental and social concerns in the context of the sustainability concept. Furthermore, we find that critical-constructive transformative research encounters challenges when narrating about its position vis-à-vis society and policy-making in the process of formulating goals and working towards them. We identified a tension between leaning stronger either towards independent, critical goal formulation or towards an engagement with actual political processes. Maintaining the ability to change roles between the process-involved and the process-observing sustainability researcher might be a promising way out for those dedicated to workings towards sustainability transitions.
Not only is the climate changing, but so is global climate governance. Climate policy initiatives have proliferated within and beyond the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) regime in a polycentric pattern. Nevertheless, promised action under the Paris Agreement (PA) is far from being sufficient to achieve its targets of keeping global warming below 2 °C. A special research focus has emerged on international ‘climate clubs’, referring to a smaller group’s greater ability to make progress in international climate policy compared to large global forums. Against this background, our paper reflects on the club functions of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), a transnational partnership that aims at slowing the rate of near-term global warming through the reduction of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs). How does the CCAC contribute to global climate governance and how does this relate to existing structures, such as the UNFCCC process and the PA? Researchers have generally found that climate clubs can raise ambition, produce emissions reductions, and/or enhance cooperation, while generating additional benefits for its members. However, their specific governance contribution remains rather opaque, for example, how emissions reductions are achieved. There is a lack of analytical application, knowledge of the political practice and of in-depth case studies of the clubs concept. This paper contributes to filling this gap by applying central aspects of clubs research, namely membership and size, public goods, and the provision of additional benefits as an analytical framework in one in-depth case study of a governance initiative that has not yet been the subject of academic scrutiny: the CCAC. The results are based on expert interviews and the analysis of strategic and academic documents. Overall, this research finds that the CCAC’s largest contribution to global climate governance lies in preparing SLCP emissions reductions through raising awareness, orchestrating different actors and actions related to SLCPs, and establishing a large technical cooperation network. To some degree it also directly implements SLCP reduction projects. Ultimately, it complements the UNFCCC and especially the Paris Agreement. Members are part of the CCAC because its benefits go beyond climate change mitigation. Its large transnational membership constellation both supports and challenges its governance contribution.
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