A systems view of climate change

Abstract

The challenge of climate change is an outstanding example of a systems problem. Engineers have an essential, and so far under-recognised, role in responding to the climate challenge, alongside many other disciplines in environmental science, economics, social sciences and politics. In this paper, we identify a number of the distinctive systems characteristics of climate change, from an engineering perspective. These relate to issues of spatial and temporal scale, uncertainty and interdisciplinarity. The challenge of implementing transitions to a sustainable future system state is discussed.

Keywords:

• climate change
• systems problem
• sustainable

Acknowledgements

Colin Taylor, Ian Duncan, Richard Henderson, Mitsuyuki Hashimoto and Ed Goddard also contributed to this paper through the group discussion at the Systems 2030 workshop at Bristol University in April 2008.