Global environmental assessments and transformative change: the role of epistemic infrastructures and the inclusion of social sciences

Abstract

The gap between what is known about climate change and the action taken to prevent it has instigated debates around how to reconfigure global environmental assessment organizations to better inform and foster transformative change. One recurring request involves the need for a broader and better inclusion of social scientific knowledge. However, despite such intentions, the inclusion of social scientific research remains limited. How can this be explained? Through a detailed analysis of the IPCC special report on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, this article reveals how the institutional conditions of global environmental assessments condition and shape what knowledge is included in these assessments, as well as how this knowledge is represented. It discusses how and why the understanding of social processes and structures remains underdeveloped, despite such knowledge being critical for transformative change. To integrate such knowledge into environmental assessments would require substantial changes to the current epistemic infrastructure used by global environmental assessments. It is therefore time to think beyond global environmental assessments and consider complementary institutional science–policy relations through which social scientific research can assist policy actions to promote deep transformative change.

Keywords:

• environmental expertise
• epistemic infrastructure
• epistemic culture
• global environmental assessments
• IPCC
• transformative change

1. Introduction

With the growing insight of the urgency and severity of environmental crises, calls for transformative change have been raised within science, policy and public discourse. Increased attention is being directed at questions such as how society can be transformed and what aspects of society need to be transformed (Berg 2021; Lahsen and Turnhout 2021; Lidskog, Standring, and White 2022; Stoddard et al. 2021). Although the debate is broadening, relevant actions are lagging, and the main response to these questions remains technocratic (Beck et al. 2021; Hansson et al. 2021; Nightingale et al. 2020). Science plays a critical role in global environmental governance, particularly through the global knowledge assessments that are produced by the intergovernmental platforms of the IPCC and IPBES, which have helped to put climate change and biodiversity loss on the international policy agenda. With the quest for transformative change, the role of global environmental assessments (GEAs), such as those made by the IPCC and IPBES, is being adjusted (Beck and Mahony 2018; Castree, Bellamy, and Osaka 2021; Jabbour and Flachsland 2017). The role of such assessments has expanded from establishing the need for change by presenting a consensual scientific understanding of the problems of climate change and biodiversity loss to exploring measures that can initiate and support a more sustainable path. Thus, there has been a move towards more solution-oriented assessments (Beck and Siebenhüner 2022; Castree, Bellamy, and Osaka 2021). The emphasis on transformative change has also strengthened the request for social scientific research, which has been ascribed a greater role in GEAs (Dunlap and Brulle 2015; Stenseke and Larigauderie 2018). The social sciences are deemed important for understanding the social drivers of climate change and biodiversity loss, as well as the implementation prerequisites of possible solutions.

However, including social scientific knowledge and perspectives in GEAs has not been easy. With recurring calls for an increased knowledge pluralism and epistemic diversity within the IPCC reports (Beck and Mahony 2018; Standring and Lidskog 2021), more social sciences is now included in the reports. Nevertheless, its influence on the core messages remains limited (van Beek et al. 2022), which is a pattern that remains in the IPCC’s last assessment, AR6 (Lidskog and Sundqvist 2022). To progress further, we need to better understand the constraints that inhibit a broader social scientific approach within these assessments.

In this article, epistemic constraints on the inclusion of social sciences in GEAs are explored. That is, how the epistemic infrastructure of these assessments shapes and constrains what research is included is delineated. To accomplish this, we focus on one of the most recent and influential IPCC reports, the special report on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees (SR15). The report is the first IPCC report that has a clear solution-oriented character and stresses the unconditional need for transformative change while also involving social dimensions. Nevertheless, the report grants a key role to natural science-based modeling (van Beek et al. 2022). The IPCC is probably the most influential global environmental assessment organization, the GEA that receives the most political attention, and the GEA that plays the part of a role model for other assessment organizations. It is therefore reasonable to assume that it represents and institutionalizes a broader epistemic culture, established on international scale. Thus, we explore whether there are structural epistemic factors that shape and constrain the representation of social sciences within the IPCC. Taking Knorr Cetina’s characterization of epistemic culture as a point of departure, we identify a structural pattern which influences what knowledge is included and centralized and what knowledge is marginalized, even though such knowledge is considered important.

Epistemic cultures are stabilized by epistemic infrastructures (such as technologies, models and datasets) and by epistemic objects, which are the objects at the center of inquiry. This means that certain dimensions of a problem are foregrounded and certain bodies of knowledge are authorized, while others are marginalized (Bueger 2015). Even though a knowledge provider takes the stance of not being policy prescriptive, the assessment and production of knowledge create particular scripts of action while overlooking other potential alternatives. Our analysis shows that the epistemic infrastructure of the assessment, together with the epistemic culture, serves to favor the type of research and innovations that can predict a direct effect on CO₂ reduction. These conditions also serve to prolong certain societal trends, such as growth, through their scenarios, which suggests that it is possible to fully decouple economic growth from environmental impacts. The analysis further illustrates how epistemic culture and infrastructure serve to marginalize certain forms of social scientific knowledge, specifically critical insights into the dynamics of social processes, which is a type of knowledge that is crucial for understanding the constraints and possibilities involving deep green transformative changes. Based on our conclusions, we engage in the academic discussion regarding how GEAs may be organized to better support transformative change. We contribute to this debate by discussing how changes in the epistemic infrastructure could enable more substantial and constructive contributions from the social sciences and fostering a deeper understanding and repertoire for green transformative change.

2. Epistemic culture and knowledge production

In general terms, we tend to think about culture and science as distinct rationalities, where culture is shaped by norms, customs, and socialized practises, while science is harnessed in pursuit of objective truth. As a critique of this understanding, the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) emerged as a specific field in the 1970s (see, e.g. Barnes 1974; Bloor 1976). It is a rich field involving various and sometimes (very) conflictual approaches. Initially focused on scientific controversies and the ways that closure was achieved (e.g. Collins 1982; Pickering 1990, Shapin and Schaffer 1985), it later came to focus on scientific practices, such as knowledge production in laboratories (e.g. Latour and Woolgar 1979) and how successful scientific work requires the developing of networks (Callon 1984). The sociology of science has since come to focus on the ways that research is conducted with the aim of identifying the social, discursive and material contexts that shape and constrain knowledge and give it mobility within society.

With the concept of epistemic culture, Knorr Cetina has explored the machineries of scientific knowledge production. Epistemic culture refers to ‘those sets of practices, arrangements and mechanisms bound together by necessity, affinity and historical coincidence which, in a given area of professional expertise, make up how we know what we know’ (Knorr Cetina 2007, 363). We build upon the theoretical insights gleaned from this strand of research while focusing on the structuring effects (rather than the reproduction) of epistemic culture. Theoretically, we acknowledge the roles played by actors and practices; however, the focus of this article is on the structures that shape these practices and is (re)produced by them. Global environmental assessments are embedded in epistemic culture. If we want to understand why the inclusion of social scientific research is constrained and what kind of institutional changes could enable its broader inclusion, then we need to consider the stabilizers of epistemic culture.

Epistemic cultures exist on different levels in society. There are epistemic cultures within specific laboratories and there are dominant epistemologies in specific disciplines and research fields. On national scale there are established and legitimate ways of knowing and assessing situations (that is, the national norms regarding what is deemed legitimate proof or an appropriate factual foundation for policy action) (Jasanoff 2004). Even globally, there are normative structures concerning what constitutes legitimate knowledge claims (cf. Miller 2007). The different levels are interrelated, e.g. national or international ideals shapes the funding opportunities of researchers and as well as laboratories. However it also mean that there is a diversity of epistemic cultures which complement and challenge each other.

2.1. The stabilizer of epistemic culture: epistemic infrastructures and objects

Epistemic infrastructure provides the instruments, devices, and artefacts necessary for producing knowledge. In science, a laboratory is probably the most well-known and visible form of infrastructure. Other examples of infrastructures include monitoring stations (Bueger 2015), big datasets and specific measurements applied by multiple organizations (Tichenor et al. 2022), programs for analysing data, and other methodological techniques. This infrastructure is intimately related to the epistemic culture since it is accompanied by practical know-how and norms that guide the usage of instruments, techniques and devices, including tacit knowledge on how to interpret and handle situations when explicit rules provide insufficient guidance.

Epistemic infrastructure stabilizes epistemic cultures. The existing knowledge, techniques, longitudinal datasets with broad coverage, established skills, etc., create various path dependencies (Persson 2015). The availability of data and technical possibilities, as well as the cognitive skills needed to analyse them, enable specific research. An epistemic culture can promote the usage and development of certain kinds of datasets and methodological techniques, and such training presupposes and thus promotes a certain culture and certain forms of scientific knowledge. It is therefore difficult to change one without changing the other.

Another factor which acts as nodal points and stabilizes the epistemic infrastructure and culture is epistemic objects. Epistemic infrastructures shape the production of distinct types of problematizations that center around specific epistemic objects, i.e. the objects at the center of inquiry. Epistemic objects are characterized by incompleteness, which is what binds researchers to them (Knorr Cetina 2016). These objects become nodes in the epistemic infrastructure. The infrastructure, including its data, techniques, models, and skills, shapes these epistemic objects. In this process, certain dimensions of a problem are foregrounded, and certain bodies of knowledge are authorized while others are marginalized (Bueger 2015). Meanwhile, the incompleteness of the object drives the continuity of the scientific endeavor (Tichenor et al. 2022).

In sum, knowledge production is shaped by shared sets of norms, infrastructures, procedures, and resources that are upheld and reproduced through epistemic cultures. Epistemic cultures and infrastructures can be discerned through an identification of the ways that epistemic objects are constructed, the epistemic practices that make them knowable and the epistemic infrastructure that makes these practices possible (cf. Knorr Cetina 1999).

2.2. Global environmental assessment, infrastructure, and culture

GEAs have played a key role in global environmental governance. The knowledge assessments of the IPCC have been indispensable in placing climate change on policy agendas worldwide. We therefore consider the IPCC reports as inscriptions or physical manifestations of the most influential aspects of epistemic culture in environmental governance (Tichenor et al. 2022). At an aggregate level, epistemic infrastructures link different organizations and actors into a single web of relations (Tichenor et al. 2022). The assessment reports of the IPCC ties together policy and science, as well bringing together researchers from different nations and disciplines. Through their interaction, epistemic objects and infrastructure come to shape GEAs and thereby shape policy and scientific agendas (van Beek et al. 2022); at the same time, epistemic objects are shaped and stabilized through this entanglement (see Hansson et al. 2021). While acknowledging the intertwined nature of the political and scientific spheres within the IPCC, our focus is not on the political dimensions of the reports but rather on the epistemic dimension. Our focus is on what it is within the epistemic structures of these reports that constrain a broader inclusion or the social sciences? That being said, it is important to acknowledge that there are also political interests in global environmental governance that seek to influence what epistemic object gains attention, and thus the focus of the assessments.

As with research, GEAs embody epistemic infrastructures and cultures that shape and constrain their practices and subsequent knowledge assessments. What characterizes GEAs is that they assess existing research, which in turn has been shaped by epistemic infrastructures and cultures. Moreover, the assessors, i.e. the experts recruited to conduct assessments, come from different epistemic contexts. They have been trained in different epistemic infrastructures and have appropriated specific epistemic cultures, which they bring with them into the assessment organization (Gustafsson and Berg 2020; Gustafsson and Lidskog 2023). For historical reasons, natural science has been and still is pivotal for many GEAs, wherefore their epistemic culture and infrastructure has been greatly influenced by certain strands within the natural sciences (Petersen 2022). Such epistemic infrastructure and culture work as an ‘obligatory point of passage’ (Latour 1988, 44), through which knowledge must pass to be considered relevant and credible.

The initial task of the IPCC was to assess the state of collective knowledge on human-induced climate effects and their potential consequences (Hulme 2009; Skodvin 2022). It centerd around a model of the climate system consisting of geophysical components and biogeochemical cycles (Borie et al. 2021). This model made it possible to estimate future changes in climate systems and thereafter to investigate their probable impacts on society. The central role played by climate modeling indicates that such techniques have been fundamental for such assessments and that many researchers that contribute to the IPCC reports have been trained and positioned in such environments (Guillemot 2022). The epistemic culture that has shaped the IPCC has been centerd around establishing estimates, certainties, and scientific consensus, where the role of science is to establish objective knowledge and use it to inform policy-makers (Berg and Lidskog 2018a). It has been argued that these ideals have led the IPCC to maintain its focus on well-established and minimal claims such as the claim that humans are the cause of global warming, while the focus on other fundamental environmental controversies is defuzed, and the knowledge and expertise that can inform the debate and value judgements around these issues receive less attention (Pearce et al. 2017).

An increased level of attention given to solutions and a focus on pathways of change suits the scenario methodology and its ability to expand timelines into future trajectories. The modeling of mitigation pathways that are compatible with long-term goals is playing an increasingly important role in IPCC reports and has therefore received a high level of scrutiny in recent years (Skea et al. 2021). In the same way that the laboratory context and its practices involve a reduction of the complexity of the objects of study to control the setting in a way that enables specific hypotheses to be tested (Knorr Cetina 1999), scenario calculations reduce complexity to enable an estimation of the relational effect of certain variables over time (Cointe 2022). Thus, the scenario and pathway methodology constitute an epistemic infrastructure for which certain data, knowledge and assumptions fit better, while other knowledge, data and assumptions are side-lined. By exploring the inclusion and exclusion mechanisms of the epistemic infrastructure, we can understand why certain social scientific research has received limited attention. Through an analysis of the epistemic patterns contained in the report, we can identify the norms and prerequisites of the assessments that conflict with certain forms of knowledge and those that fit with others.

3. Case and method

As part of the Paris Agreement (2015), the IPCC was invited to compile a special report on the effects of a 1.5 degree temperature increase compared to those of 2 degrees, as well as the possible ways to achieve these goals. In 2018, the IPCC presented its special report on 1.5 degrees of global warming (SR15). The reason for analysing this specific report is that it represents the first clear shift towards more solution-oriented assessments with attention given to social factors, such as equity and governance. It is also a report that has been incredibly influential (van Beek et al. 2022, 198). The 630-page report illustrates different mitigation pathways for reaching the objective of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees. Although the IPCC relies on an extensive peer review process for its assessment reports, state representatives formulate the assessment task, which the research community is asked to accept. Thus, political actors take part in pushing the solution-oriented direction of the report. It is also the member states and observer organizations that are responsible for identifying and nominating experts for the assessments, and government representatives approve all formulations of the summary for policy-makers, which is part of the reports (see IPCC 2013). Since our interest is in how the epistemic infrastructure shapes the content of the report, we have therefore not included the summary for policy-makers in the analysis. However, it could be noted that the reliance on numbers and IAMs (Integrated Assessment Modeling) has exerted a strong influence on the summary (van Beek et al. 2022).

Our analytical focus is on the ways that epistemic culture and infrastructure shape knowledge assessments. Methodologically, these constructs can be discerned by identifying how epistemic objects are constructed within the report, what epistemic infrastructures make them knowable, and what knowledge becomes critical. In our analysis, we do not scrutinize specific assumptions of the models but rather aim to identify and explain a broader pattern regarding what forms of knowledge (mis)fit the infrastructure and culture. By analysing what areas and epistemic objects are given the most attention and how they are represented, we can analytically identify epistemic infrastructures in terms of the methodologies, techniques, and epistemic norms that accompany this infrastructure. Thereby, we can explain why some areas and knowledge are given a central role in the report, while other critical issues and knowledge are reduced or marginalized.

To conduct a structured analysis of the full report, it was imported into NVivo and thematically coded in three steps (cf. Williams and Moser 2019). In the first step, formulations were marked up that directly and indirectly expressed the demand for or importance of a particular form of knowledge for achieving change. In the second step, recurring patterns of these representations were identified, thus allowing us to see what knowledge was prioritized and what knowledge was marginalized. In the third step, these patterns were verified by the other author. Thus, we inductively mapped the knowledge types that were represented as crucial within the report, knowledge that received a key role and what knowledge that were given less attention. Thereafter, we conducted a theory-driven analysis in an attempt to explain these patterns, in which we examined how these representations were structured and whether this structure could be explained by epistemic infrastructures, such as the main methodology of the report. Due to its length and the large number of studies assessed, our analysis does not provide an encompassing representation of the content of the report. Rather, it is focused on the general patterns and characteristics of the report’s content.

4. How epistemic infrastructure shape the content of assessment reports

In the following, we present our analytical findings and explain how the epistemic culture and infrastructure have shaped the report, specifically focusing on the space provided for the inclusion of the social sciences. Four inclusion or exclusion mechanisms of the epistemic infrastructure and culture are identified as central to the content of the assessment.

4.1. Favoring tangible solutions

The type of knowledge that is central to the report is contingent on the methodological approach taken. The report centers around different climate-resilient development pathways that aim to meet the climate goals. The different pathways are modeled to remain within 1.5 degrees of warming, with 2 degrees of warming used as an additional reference point. By using scenarios and starting from the need (or aspiration) to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees, amendments for reducing the amount of greenhouse gases (GHGs) that are emitted or for storing or removing CO₂ from the atmosphere become key components in the analysis. Thus, since GHG concentration is the central epistemic object, those factors that reduce CO₂ become the most vital components of the report. CO₂ reductions may be driven by social changes involving, e.g. decreased energy demand or dietary changes. However, in the report, most of the attention is given to technological solutions that range from well-known technologies such as electrification, renewable energy and nuclear energy to potential or emerging technologies such as bioenergy carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and solar radiation modification (SRM). The latter technologies are discussed in the report but not included in the pathways due to the uncertainty and fundamental risks associated with them (Ch. 4). Some other techniques that are included in the pathways are carbon dioxide removal (CDR), such as that achieved through reforestation and bioenergy applications.

This emphasis placed on solutions that can have a tangible direct effect on GHGs shapes the way that the environment is represented and influences the approaches taken to environmental risks. This means that the report contains a certain openness to the idea of modifying nature, such as adjusting ocean alkalinity to help counter ocean acidification, developing large-scale land-use plans and genome modification to assist in the mitigation and adaptation of agriculture to climate change, adding nutrients to the oceans to increase the level of biological production and thereby carbon fixation, and even the application of solar radiation modification. Even though the feasibility of and openness to these different solutions vary, they are all targeted to the modification of the environment., Even methods that are explicitly considered risky are up for consideration since they have a direct effect on CO₂ reduction and are calculable. It has been argued that when the IPCC includes (potential) technical solutions in their scenarios, this inclusion may play a performative function, opening for developments that require less emission reduction while obscuring their potential consequences, risks and alternatives (Beck and Mahony 2018). We argue that the inclusion of uncertain and risky technologies is prompted by the specific scenario methodology, where distinct solutions with direct and calculable effects on GHG are the best fit. Hansson et al. (2021) showed that there was contestation in the review process concerning the reliance, amount and types of BECCS in pathways. However, despite the contestation, the amendments to the report were limited.

The natural environment serves as center stage for the report and is the main target for solutions. One of the most important components of these pathways is the usage of land. The use of land is critical since many of the measures meant to mitigate climate change, such as reforestation, afforestation or the use of bioenergy crops, require land. Other measures, such as dietary change, which requires the changing of human habits, have the benefit of making land available for other usages. The way that land is used also has critical consequences for biodiversity, human habitats and food prices. Thus, while different policy pathways may (in simulations) lead to similar degrees of warming, their consequences in terms of trade-offs, social risks and effects, and thus their (possible) effects on other SDGs, vary greatly. Nevertheless, the social implications of each pathway are not covered in a systematic way. The limited engagement with trade-offs is likely a consequence of the ideal of political neutrality (cf. Hansson et al. 2021), which in this case can work to exclude highly relevant knowledge and perspectives.

4.2. Preserving current trends

The report states that the pathways that focus on demand reduction and low usage of CDRs and BECCS involve making trade-offs:

In general, pathways with emphasis on demand reductions and policies that incentivize behavioural change, sustainable consumption patterns, healthy diets and relatively low use of CDR (or only afforestation) show relatively more synergies with individual SDGs than other pathways. (157)

Nevertheless, relatively little attention has been devoted to identifying solutions that tackle the drivers of GHGs (such as solutions that decrease the levels of energy and resource use and demand). One of the reasons for this, we argue, is that certain assumptions about society and social development are being built into these pathways. In these form of pathway models, future trends are projected based on previous developments. This means that continuous developments of factors such as growth and consumption levels are assumed in the scenarios and are thereby normalized. The report takes the idea that growth will be consistently maintained as a starting point (Ch. 1), even though economic and population growth are related to an increase in CO₂ emissions. This indicates the assumption that a complete decoupling of economic growth and environmental pressure and pollution is possible, including the avoidance of rebound effects, even though such assumptions lack empirical support (see Vadén et al. 2020). A belief in the possibility of decoupling is fundamental to the rationality of the report. The financial system is considered a means of harnessing change to promote technological innovations and energy transitions. It is stated that ‘[r]ealizing the transformations towards a 1.5 °C world would require a major shift in investment patterns (McCollum et al., 2018)’ (153). The financial system and the broader economic system are both represented as being crucial for achieving change. However, they are not considered to be in need of transformation themselves (cf. Berg 2021). They are not regarded as part of the problem in terms of driving financialization, increasing the demand for financial return, or increasing emissions.

Global inequalities and structural vulnerabilities are highlighted as problems that may be enforced by climate change and the actions taken to mitigate it. Furthermore, the report acknowledges that free-market ideology is associated with weaker beliefs in climate change and that a capital-oriented culture tends to promote activities that are associated with GHG emissions (364). Nevertheless, the report does not engage with the systemic issues that are related to production, consumption and growth, which all serve to hamper sustainability. While nature is up for amendment, society and its strong reliance on technical progress and economic growth are not being questioned. A reason is that the epistemic culture and modeling technique favor solutions that directly modify the concentration of GHGs. Solutions that involve the amendment of societal trends (i.e. indirect effects) are disfavored. These trends are stabilized in the models, even though their sustainability is widely contested by research (which receives poor representation in this report). Taken together, there is an openness to modifying nature and promoting large-scale innovations that have transformative potential, even when the outcomes are uncertain and potential risks are anticipated, and yet there is no openness to questioning or modifying growth, capitalism, financialization or the globalization of commodity supply chains. This is a development that is stabilized by pathway models. The stabilization of such trends – which promotes path dependency – is perceived as being policy neutrality.

4.3. Shallowing social science

Thus far, we have discussed how epistemic infrastructures fit and favor certain knowledge and perspectives and thereby limit other. However, the epistemic infrastructure at play also serves to limit the scope of different forms of knowledge. Governance and the policy sphere are repeatedly described in the report as being crucial to the pursuit of limiting global warming. Multilevel governance that uses policy coordination between its different levels is framed as critical, and the urgency of policy measures is underlined (475).

The available literature indicates that 1.5 °C-consistent pathways would require robust, stringent and urgent transformative policy interventions targeting the decarbonization of energy supply, electrification, fuel switching, energy efficiency, land-use change, and lifestyles (321)

This is contingent on the epistemic infrastructure, which promotes the identification of factors and mechanisms that have been found to be productive; i.e. it promotes political factors with a proven effect on GHG concentration. This means that a certain type of social scientific research, which is mainly oriented towards the empirical correlation of a limited set of variables, is needed, for the models. Furthermore, with such an approach to social factors, the synthesized knowledge base becomes highly reduced and at worst not much better than common sense. The quotation below serves as an illustration:

To overcome barriers to policy implementation, local conflicts of interest or vested interests, strong leadership and agency is needed by political leaders. … political leaders with a vision for the future of the local community can succeed in reducing GHG emissions when they are supported by civil society (Rivas et al., 2015; Croci et al., 2017; Kona et al., 2018). Any political vision would need to be translated into an action plan, which could include elements describing policies and measures needed to achieve transition, the human and financial resources needed, milestones, and appropriate measurement and verification processes (Azevedo and Leal, 2017). Discussing the plan with stakeholders and civil society, including citizens and allowing for participation for minorities, and having them provide input and endorse it, has been found to increase the likelihood of success … (354)

These kinds of proclamations represent basic insights within disciplines such as political sciences as well as among various political actors. However, when presented this briefly, they do not say anything in regard to the burning question about how these different factors can be achieved in different contexts.

The same pattern is visible in the report regarding social and individual change. The focus on factors with an effect on emissions means that a knowledge base is being presented that offers little guidance. This focus favors accounts of correlations over insights into those relations and processes. The report uses broad brushstrokes to paint a rather general picture, emphasizing that peoples’ levels of engagement in climate action depend (partly) on whether they think that others expect them to; whether others engage as well; whether they experience social support; whether they believe it might enhance their reputation; whether they have an environmental identity and the intrinsic motivation to act on climate change; whether political party elites are united rather that divided in their support for environmental issues; on how adaptation is being framed in media; and on their awareness of climate change and the negative climate related consequences of their actions (364-5). Furthermore, the report acknowledges that information influences action, particularly when that information is tailored, is effectively timed to correlate with decision making and resonates with individuals’ core values (367). Factors and correlations are foregrounded, while a deeper understanding of the processes behind these correlations and qualities is beyond the scope of the format of the report. In other words, it includes information but excludes the related knowledge. Although it is stated several times in the report that lifestyle changes are necessary, there is no deeper engagement with, for example, the embedding of different forms of consumption in social practices (cf. Rau 2018; Shove 2010), nor with the role of more intricate and aggressive marketing. The implicit theory of change is that changing attitudes will affect behaviors and choices. Meanwhile, there is a void concerning the way that states, businesses and other influential actors configure the structural contexts in which people lead their lives (cf. Shove 2010).

4.4. Concealing the general society

In the report, society is mainly represented as a mediating factor rather than as a complex society within which institutions and logics need to be transformed. Different governance forms are seen as tools to accomplish technical and behavioral change, and public opinion is represented as a possible constraint that needs to be managed. The quotation below provides a representative example of both the need for policy (which is expressed in very general terms) and the need to manage negative responses of the public.

Triggering rapid and far-reaching change in technical choices and institutional arrangements, consumption and lifestyles, infrastructure, land use, and spatial patterns implies the ability to scale up policy signals to enable the decoupling of GHGs emission, and economic growth and development (Section 4.2.2.3). Such a scale-up would also imply that potential short-term negative responses by populations and interest groups, which could block these changes from the outset, would need to be prevented or overcome. (372)

This aspiration of managing public attitudes and responses suggests that there are solutions available that people and interest groups might block, thus leading to a need to manage this kind of social barrier. This view assumes that there exist solutions that are external to the social dimension, and society becomes reduced to an intermediary link that facilitates or obstructs such changes. However, even what seems to be restricted, technical solutions are socially embedded (Beck et al. 2021; Jasanoff 2004). The belief and great trust in technical measures and innovations shadow many root causes of climate change, including those that are central features of modern societies. This means that social and political structures, which include the economy, should not be reduced to independent variables but should rather be seen as constituent parts of society that need to be contested and transformed. Then, knowledge is needed about alternative ways of organizing society, that have the potential to decrease the demand for natural resources and diminish the pressure on and pollution of the environment, such as e.g. the ideas and models forwarded by ecological economics (see Daly 2014). Furthermore, a systematic knowledge assessment into the factors, drivers and institutions that reproduce the current societal structures and unsustainable practices is needed along with an assessment of how fundamental shifts have taken place in history and how these transformations can be initiated and facilitated (Linnér and Wibeck 2019). This means that there is a need to assess the research on, for example, mass consumption, economic restructuring, value change and global cooperation (see, e.g. Blühdorn 2020; Boström 2020).

5. Conclusions

Our analysis of SR15 reveals a paradox: the report illustrates the political nature of climate change, the trade-offs and dilemmas that it encompasses, the societal choices that need to be made, and the value and risk judgements involved in the identified sustainable pathways. It returns to the crucial role of governance systems, value-related trade-offs and the continuous need to counter inequality. At the same time, the report does not engage in any deeper sense with the research literature on these processes. Much of the relevant social scientific research is either not included or, if included, not assessed in a way that provides constructive and substantial guidance. How can this be explained?

The analysis indicates the existence of a path dependency, which is not only tied to the central epistemic object but also to the epistemic culture and infrastructure (the methodological approach and techniques) that have shaped the IPCC. Certain forms of knowledge fit better, which primarily includes the knowledge concerning innovations in land use, energy and technology. There is also, certain social scientific knowledge that fits the epistemic infrastructure, such as economic valuation and calculation. The epistemic object, GHG emissions, and the models which serve to structure the report, have led to an emphasis on measures such as using cleaner energy, capturing carbon and building an adaptive capacity. Therefore, the problem is positioned as ‘outside’ of society. This framing has obscured the social foundation of climate change, which is a product of political economies and social practices (Nightingale et al. 2020). The assessment is indirectly prescriptive since it excludes many alternatives, normalizes societal trends and favors certain technological solutions (cf. Lahsen and Turnhout 2021; Shove 2010). In practice, potential solutions are never value-neutral, and the building in of solutions into scenarios may serve a performative function (Beck and Mahony 2018), as well as the exclusion of others. Technical fixes such as negative emissions technologies are based on normative commitments in terms of beliefs in technological systems and regulatory frameworks. They can also have far-reaching political implications in terms of, for example, land use and the forced relocation of people, which are often not apparent when these proposed solutions are presented.

That social scientific knowledge on processes such as consumption, deliberation and governance are poorly represented is a fact that is related to the misalignment of this knowledge in the IPCC’s knowledge assessments. Process-oriented research is not given due justice in the report, although such research is decisive for social transformation. Process-oriented knowledge refers to research that attempts to create an understanding of processes and interactions, such as deliberation, governance or transformation, or the processes that underly the formation of an event or situation. To fully understand societal conditions and developments, we must investigate the reason behind causal links; for instance, we must explore why a particular activity has emerged, which function or meaning it serves for those actors who engage in it, and how it is maintained, expanded, or potentially abandoned. Thus, social scientists include motives, meanings and objectives in their accounts and explanations of social phenomena (Bevir and Blakely 2018). Much social science has a theoretical and conceptual understanding of processes as its core. That is, empirical investigations add to the knowledge base by assisting in developing an enriched understanding of society and of the processes and interactions that constitute it. Such knowledge helps actors understand and interpret the world and the dynamics that shape societal development. However, this knowledge cannot be synthesized into neat conclusions and findings without losing its essence and main substance. This kind of knowledge is therefore more difficult to generalize and translate into implementable solutions or universal managerial propositions.

Our analysis shows that the epistemic infrastructure favors a particular view on causality, specifically that of direct casual relationships (cf. van Beek et al. 2022). The modeling methodology and empiricist culture favor ‘information knowledge’ (cf. Knorr Cetina 2007, 369). The assessment report builds on the rationale of the accumulation of empirical findings, even in regard to assessed knowledge that is not included in the scenario models. In the report, there is a request for the provisioning of more context-specific and place-related knowledge and solutions (e.g. p. 458). However, the requested knowledge is a specific type of knowledge, assuming that certainty is achievable and that answers are obtainable by adding up available facts (rather than enriching our understanding): e.g.

Limited literature has systematically evaluated context-specific synergies and trade-offs between and across adaptation and mitigation response measures in 1.5°C-compatible pathways and the SDGs. This hampers the ability to inform decision-making and fair and robust policy packages adapted to different local, regional or national circumstances. More research is required to understand how trade-offs and synergies will intensify or decrease, differentially across geographic regions and time, in a 1.5°C warmer world and as compared to higher temperatures. (474)

Thus, the intention in requesting this knowledge is not to increase the understanding of the processes at work but rather to identify policy packages or pathways. The provisioning of options for action represents the IPCC’s attempt to be policy relevant.

The social sciences cover issues such as equity, governance, livelihood, norms, and cultures, tend to cover issues that are politically contested and rarely present packaged solutions, such as technical fixes or managerial models. While these aspects of the social sciences serve to exclude them from the report, the same qualities could be considered essential to the formulation of policy-relevant knowledge that is not policy prescriptive. Acting on climate change demands expertise that acknowledges the value conflicts and uncertainties involved and provides a wider vision of social, political and economic change while highlighting the various implications of different alternatives (Berg and Lidskog 2018b; Grundmann 2018; Pearce et al. 2017). If specialists are given the task of assessing solutions, it entails the risk of taming the problem and thereby obscuring many of its dimensions (Grundmann 2018).

6. The ways forward: alternate epistemic infrastructures

What science–policy relations could better benefit from the many assets of the social sciences? There is currently a vivid debate regarding the limitations of GEAs and how they could or should be rearranged to be more relevant for sustainable transformations (Beck et al. 2014; Borie et al. 2021; Castree, Bellamy, and Osaka 2021; Nightingale et al. 2020; Turnhout, Dewulf, and Hulme 2016). Based on our findings, we discuss three alternative ways forwards from the perspective of changes to the epistemic infrastructure, where the first two propositions figure most prominently in the current academic debate on the science-policy interface of global environmental governance. The third alternative goes beyond the reconfiguration of the IPCC and suggests that other science–policy relations might be more productive.

The first option involves a slight modification of the IPCC to better include social sciences. This is the development that is currently serving as the response to the call for more solution-oriented assessments, which has motivated the inclusion of a broader set of disciplines in the assessments. However, the inclusion of more social scientists in the reports has not been easy (Victor 2015). One reason for this regards the fact that the institutional possibilities and benefits of contributing to an environmental assessment are greater for researchers in the natural sciences (Stenseke and Larigauderie 2018). However, even when the social sciences are included, the scope remains restricted (Vadrot, Akhtar-Schuster, and Watson 2018; Victor 2015), which is a pattern that is enforced when the different parts of reports are synthesized (van Beek et al. 2022). We have shown how epistemic infrastructures constrain and limit inclusion. Any modification aimed at achieving a greater inclusion of social sciences would therefore need to involve the transitioning of infrastructural conditions to support their inclusion (cf. Montana 2021). Thus, apart from recruiting a broader set of social scientific scientists as assessors and assessing more social scientific knowledge, which is generally promoted, changes are required to the assessments’ structure. We have shown that the main structure and the way pathways are modeled conditions and constraints on the selection of relevant research and how it is portraited.

The benefit provided by only a slight modification to the GEAs is that much of the assessment work may be unaffected, and its well-established procedures and routines may continue as previously but with the addition of social scientists. However, our findings suggest that without changing the epistemic infrastructure, the addition of social scientific research will not result in an in-depth assessment, as it neglects the crucial benefits of process-oriented knowledge. Two other potential risks that accompany this option are i) that the changes are not sufficient to engage qualified social scientists, resulting in a poorer assessment of social science knowledge; and ii) that broadening the scope of the IPCC, and thus expanding its range of expertise, might compromise the IPCC’s original role, namely, to counteract fragmented climate expertise and present a united voice (Bolin 2007).

As a critique of the limitations of the first option, another position has emerged in the debate, which insists on more fundamental changes being made to the IPCC’s epistemic infrastructure and claims that the current GEA versions are no longer fit for their purpose (Castree, Bellamy, and Osaka 2021; Kowarsch et al. 2017). GEAs have come to be an important bridge between the scientific and political spheres, whereby they have been functional for agenda setting and raising awareness of environmental problems (Lidskog and Sundqvist 2015). However, they have not successfully dealt with the deep intertwinement of environmental problems and social processes (Hulme 2009). It is therefore argued that the assessment of the physical science basis of climate change needs to be complemented through an assessment of its social causes and drivers. Some proposed ways to accomplish this are the establishment of a separate working group on the social science basis of climate change (Berg and Lidskog 2018a) or provisioning working groups with greater epistemic pluralism (Beck et al. 2014), which can better assist in adapting to the character of the social sciences, including that of critical social science. We argue that such changes require the reconsideration of the epistemic object in such a way that considers GHGs as a critical consequence where the epistemic object is found in the entrenched social processes and the consumption and production practices that sustain the unsustainable. By establishing an epistemic infrastructure that is suitable for a broader set of social scientific research, much more qualified social science contributions could be conducted on, for example, social drivers, distributed agency, path dependency and the viable ways to initiate and govern transformative change.

Another more radical modification that targets the epistemic infrastructure is using another type of scenario, which could serve to open our imaginations toward more alternative futures. We have argued that the current form of scenario-making serves to conserve the core features of the current development by projecting them into the future. Projecting future societal scenarios is not simply a matter of forecasting (which is not possible due to societal complexity and the indeterminacy of agency). Rather, it is a way of making different choices and their possible consequences more perceivable and manageable. Beliefs and expectations regarding the future, which are expressed in these scenarios and reports, shape how we think and act in the present. Future images are thereby performative, and the way these projected futures are shaped may limit or expand the space for action (Mische 2009). If scenarios are used to normalize current trends and trajectories, then they are not useful for achieving more transformative changes. The space for action needs to be expanded through the projection of more alternative futures (cf. Beck et al. 2021).

The main benefit of such more path-breaking changes to the epistemic infrastructure is that they might make the IPCC more relevant and include the knowledge on social drivers and the opportunities and obstacles for transformative change. At the same time, more diverse and heterogeneous knowledge assessments make it more difficult to synthesize and to single out core messages. Any attempts to do so would run the risk of producing a shallowing abstraction of social scientific research, as we saw in the analysis. Furthermore, GEAs will not escape the challenge of being too distant from local contexts to provide the kind of knowledge that can guide action and inform specific change processes (Borie et al. 2021; Hulme 2010; Jasanoff 2004). Another risk that is often highlighted, and not least by the IPCC itself, is that including knowledge on social drivers, actors, interests, norms, power relations, etc., makes it easier for actors to politicize the assessment and to thereby contest its credibility and impact (Beck 2011).

Our analysis of SR15, together with our assessment of the literature, indicates that both options presented above have limitations which relates to the constraining aspects of epistemic infrastructures. We therefore propose a third alternative that goes beyond the IPCC and GEAs, to take better advantage of the social sciences. Thus, in contrast to certain debate claims positing that GEAs need to transform and expand their scope to remain relevant (Beck et al. 2014; Castree, Bellamy, and Osaka 2021; Nightingale et al. 2020), this option rather broadens attention to alternative and complementary science–policy interfaces. Global knowledge assessment is important, but its character implies difficulties in systematically assessing more contextual and process-oriented science, which serves to inform judgement rather than to present solutions. If this form of knowledge is needed for transforming society other forms of science-policy interactions are needed. Seeking a science–policy nexus for transformative change outside the IPCC also has the potential to enable the IPCC to keep its initial, and epistemically more limited, expert role and thereby not compromise the achievement of a united global climate expertise.

So, what could such science-policy interfaces look like? Closeness and interaction are critical components for science–policy arrangements to make broader and more productive use of the social sciences (Flyvbjerg 2001). The benefit of the social sciences is not primarily in the presentation of solutions but rather lies in its ability to expand our understanding of situations, explore how different issues are related, show how unsustainable practices are outcomes of structures, institutions and norms that need to be changed, and introduce new ways to frame and comprehend environmental problems and their solutions. Such knowledge may come from fields beyond those of climate or environmental science and involve aspects such as consumption, wellbeing, and prosperity. By challenging constraining conceptualizations and broaden imaginaries, including the social sciences can expand the space for action. By interacting more closely with different actors in society, the social sciences can facilitate the reflexivity of actors and institutions (cf. Nowotny, Scott, and Gibbons 2001). There are already examples of new and emerging science–policy relations, which include civil society actors, such as the youth movement initiated by the Fridays for Future organization, which has established a relationship and active dialogue with climate scientists, and the emergence of climate policy councils, populated by leading researchers, which evaluate the alignment of the state with its climate goals. There is an urgent need to consider, promote and expand such roles, and for social scientists themselves to actively promote and engage in such roles and transitions. Further research needs be conducted to explore what an increase in transformative science–policy relations might look like and how such roles could be promoted, established, and institutionalized.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Vetenskapsrådet : [Grant Number 2022-02503].

Notes on contributors

Monika Berg

Monika Berg is associate professor in sociology at Orebro University, Sweden, and research leader of the Environmental Sociology Section. Her research examines green transformation, the role of epistemic ideas and the interrelationship between science and policy, values and facts.

Rolf Lidskog

Rolf Lidskog is Professor of Sociology at Örebro University with expertise in environmental sociology, environmental politics, and risk regulation. He is currently researching the epistemic and social conditions of expertise and its role in international environmental governance.