Climate change – the challenge of translating scientific knowledge into action

Abstract

In spite of solid scientific evidence that anthropogenic climate change will affect the conditions for life on earth, little climate action is taking place. This paper discusses this apparent paradox. The main message is that lack of climate action has to do with the ways in which climate change interlinks with society. Climate change is representative of what in the paper is defined as ‘modern environmental problems’. Unlike ‘traditional’ environmental problems, ‘modern’ environmental problems are ‘internal’ to society and are ‘societal’ problems as much as they are environmental problems. The paper discusses how climate change must be understood in an overlapping interface between nature and society, and based on this theoretical analysis the paper discusses a number of contradictions and paradoxes illuminating the problems of linking knowledge and climate action. The concluding section calls for new methodological approaches to linking knowledge and climate action.

Keywords:

• climate change
• environment
• knowledge
• climate action
• science

Acknowledgements

This paper is part of the CLIMADAPT project funded by the Research Council of Norway. Thanks are also due to the project leader, Geir Orderud, and an anonymous reviewer for valuable comments and to Helena Dell'Ara for assistance with language editing.