Defining transformative climate science to address high-end climate change

Abstract

High-end climate change requires transformative solutions, as conventional strategies and solutions will not be enough if major disruptions in social-ecological systems are to be avoided. However, conventional climate assessment approaches and methods show many limitations if they are to provide robust knowledge and support to the implementation of such solutions in practice. To this end, we define transformative climate science as the open-ended process of producing, structuring, and applying solutionsoriented knowledge to fast-link integrated adaptation and mitigation strategies to sustainable development. In particular, based on our experiences within regional cases in Central Asia, Europe, Iberia, Scotland, and Hungary, we have selected 12 dimensions that scientists and practitioners can use as a checklist to design transformative-oriented climate assessments. While it is possible to talk both about transformative adaptation and transformative mitigation, in this paper, we make the case that societal transformation does not depend on mitigation or adaptation policies and actions, mostly because they are related to sustainability innovations, which are endogenous developments derived from deliberate social learning

Understanding high-end climate change: from impacts to co-creating integrated and transformative solutions

“…Conventional strategies and solutions will not be enough to avoid major disruptions in social-ecological systems due to the complex and non-linear changes associated with high-end scenarios. However, as Tàbara et al (2019, this issue) point out, conventional climate assessment approaches and methods demonstrate many limitations with respect to providing robust knowledge and support to the design and implementation of transformative solutions in practice. Conventional approaches cannot deal well with the complexity and non-linearity of projected changes and they tend to focus much more on describing the problem than on finding solutions.…”

“…One aim of Transformative Climate Science (Tàbara et al 2019, this issue) is to understand and support agents' transformative capacities. Hölscher et al (2019, this issue) provide a conceptual framework of capacities for transformative climate governance.…”

Towards a Moral Compass to Guide Sustainability Transformations in a High-End Climate Change World

“…In order to formulate the various HECC scenarios in an integrated way, the IMPRESSIONS project followed an iterative process of downscaling a number of global Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) [74] to case studies in different regions-the EU, Iberia, Scotland, Hungary, and Central Asia [15,73,75]. In each case study, four SSPs were created in the form of narratives to set the general socio-economic conditions in which different climatic challenges and the respective societal responses to them could unfold (for details on the IMPRESSIONS project's overall approach and its case studies see the project's Information Hub, available at: http://highendsolutions.eu/).…”

“…Situating the moral compass in an extended cognitive and normative system of reference to guide the development of transformative solutions and sustainable governance arrangements in HECC worlds (adapted from[73]). …”

Modelling dynamic effects of multi-scale institutions on land use change

“…Understanding the interplay of institutional actions at different spatial levels within the land system is therefore challenging (Paloniemi et al 2012), and projecting their impacts more difficult still. Moreover, high-end climate change requires transformative solutions and, accordingly, tools that address multiple feedbacks, irreversibility, non-linearity and tipping points (Tàbara et al 2018). The necessary simultaneous assessment of policy processes, applied practices, drivers, impacts and uncertainties can be supported by dynamic modelling, which also allows for the exploration of various socio-economic and environmental scenarios (Balint et al 2017).…”