Climate Change in Context: Local Use, Creation, and Interaction with Science

Session Submission Type: Open Panel

Abstract

Climate change is often framed as a national and international concern, but entities sensitive to local climate change impacts, like cities and protected areas, must also contend with how, if at all, to respond. The availability and role of expertise, varied institutional structures, and deep uncertainty in potential impacts and responses complicate if and how people at local scales might use scientific assessments such as projections of species extinctions or flooding frequency. However, local responses to climate change present an opportunity for learning about varied institutional responses for decision making under uncertainty in the face of the challenges laid out above. As such, this session will focus on how local entities (taking a variety of institutional shapes from across the globe) create, use, respond to, and interact with scientific knowledge in the context of climate change impacts. Relevant questions include: How are local entities using science to plan for climate change impacts and why? Who is (un)welcomed in these conversations? How do local entities adapt to varied access to resources and expertise regarding climate change assessments? How do competing scientific frameworks, assessments, or models complicate applications of science in the context of local climate change impacts? How do local social norms or policies interface with or influence climate change impact assessments? How do the dynamics of climate science and politics unfold at the local level compared to the national or international level?

Sub Unit

• Papers for Open Panels / Climate change in context: Local use, creation, and interaction with science

Chair

• Nicholas Weller, Arizona State University, School of Sustainability

Individual Presentations

• Climate Science in the US National Parks: Scale, Politics, and Contingency - Michelle Kathleen Sullivan Govani, Arizona State University

• Transformations for sustainability in dynamic deltas? A Critical Analysis of Systems Approaches to Social Change - Anna Wesselink, Department of Integrated Water Systems and Governance, UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education; Oliver Fritsch, Department of Geography, University of Leeds; Jouni Paavola, University of Leeds

• What Do Local Officials See in Participatory Technology Assessment for Climate Adaptation? - Nicholas Weller, Arizona State University, School of Sustainability; Mahmud Farooque, Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes, Arizona State University; Ira Bennett, Arizona State University

• Science Policy, Climate Science and Doing Subnational Climate Assessments - Christine Kirchhoff, University of Connecticut

Session Organizer

• Michelle Kathleen Sullivan Govani, Arizona State University