To Govern the Climate: Lessons from State Climate Scientists in Brazil

• In Event: How Has Climate Change Reshaped Scientific Expertise and the Expert? - III

Abstract

During Brazil’s democratization, environmentalists strengthened the position of environmental concerns within state institutions. Now, with the dangers of global climate change becoming more and more imposing, a number of environmental scientists have entered state bureaucracies in an effort to make a positive impact on Brazil’s adaptation to climate change. Drawing on participatory observation from 2017 to 2018 with scientific advisors for the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, this presentation explores the aspirations and struggles of these state-employed scientists as they attempted to craft plans and policy that would improve environmental conditions locally and globally. In the period between the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and the election of Jair Bolsonaro, the state environmental bureaucracies continually faced challenges ranging from environmental disasters to disruptive corruption investigations. Through this turbulence, environmental analysts endeavoured to educate and prepare other sections of the government for the climate disasters still to come. By following these scientist-bureaucrats in their day-to-day work, my research highlights some of the strategies used to overcome institutional hurdles. Along the way, the scientific content of their message was necessarily reshaped. The central question for these analysts, as well as this presentation, is what happens to scientific expertise once it enters the halls of chaotic state bureaucracies?

Author

• Jonathan Wald, McGill University