https://orcid.org/0009-0000-9023-3809
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ABSTRACT
This article aims to situate climate change by examining three scalar dissonances between “global” and “local” knowledge-making and policy action. The three dissonances – the knowledge production and policy meaning-making nexus, the politics of urgency, and the politics of building socio-climatic future pathways – engage deeply with the emergent literature that deals with climate change from the perspective of Human Geography Studies and the Social Studies of Science and Technology (STS). By posing guiding questions and through examples primarily from Latin American countries, this paper lays out a research agenda that advances geographical sensitivity, allowing us to better understand the “other” geographies of climate science production, circulation, and information use. Furthermore, it highlights the unresolved political and interdisciplinary tensions in accommodating global narratives in regions of the Global South.
RESUMO
Este artigo tem como objetivo situar a mudança climática examinando três dissonâncias escalares entre a produção de conhecimento e a ação política nos níveis “global” e “local.” As três dissonâncias (1. o nexo entre a produção de conhecimento e a formulação de políticas, 2. a política da urgência e 3. a política de construção de caminhos socioclimáticos futuros) estão intimamente ligadas à literatura emergente que aborda as mudanças climáticas sob a perspectiva dos estudos de Geografia Humana e Ciência, Tecnologia e Sociedade (CTS). Por meio de exemplos, principalmente de países latinoamericanos, e de perguntas orientadoras, este artigo estabelece uma agenda de pesquisa para avançar na construção de uma sensibilidade geográfica que estuda a dinâmica em “outras” geografias da produção, circulação e uso de informações climáticas. Ele também aponta para as tensões políticas e interdisciplinares não resolvidas em torno da compreensão e da apropriação de narrativas globais nas regiões do Sul Global.
RESUMEN
Este artículo tiene por objetivo situar el cambio climático examinando tres disonancias escalares entre la elaboración de conocimiento y la acción política a nivel “global” y “local.” Las tres disonancias (1. El nexo entre la producción de conocimiento y la formulación de políticas, 2. La política de urgencia, y 3. La política de construcción de vías de futuro socio-climáticas) se vinculan estrechamente con la literatura emergente que aborda el cambio climático desde la perspectiva de los estudios en Geografía Humana y de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad (CTS). Por medio de ejemplos, principalmente de países latinoamericanos, y de preguntas orientadoras, este documento establece una agenda de investigación que permite avanzar en la construcción de una sensibilidad geográfica que estudie las dinámicas en “otras” geografías de la producción, circulación y del uso de la información climática. Asimismo, esta agenda señala las tensiones políticas e interdisciplinarias no resueltas en torno al entendimiento y apropiación de las narrativas globales en las regiones del Sur Global.
Acknowledgements
My thanks to the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, to Ronald Cancino, Martin Mahony, and Elliot Honeybun-Arnolda for their valuable feedback. To Fátima de León and Karim Berdezerd for their help proofreading and building the figures. To CONAHCYT-Mexico for my PhD funding and to the Laboratorio de Papers ESOCITE, edition (2022), coordinated by the Asociación Latinoamericana de Estudios Sociales de la Ciencia y la Tecnología.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 In this context, the geohistorical construct of “North” and “South” as pointed out by Lahsen (Citation2004), proves valuable for illustrating deep asymmetries. However, it is crucial to exercise caution in its usage, ensuring that it does not obscure other important divisions that these terms might fail to capture.
2 Here climate change is considered, as proposed by Hulme (Citation2011, 2012), as an environmental, cultural, political, and economic phenomenon that shapes the subjectivities of everyday societies differently.
3 The nature of social processes, according to Johnston, Gregory, and Watts (Citation2001), “are inherent spatially structured and, most importantly, deeply embedded in PLACE. In a variety of senses all human activity is localised” (Johnston, Gregory, and Watts Citation2001, 458–459). This underscores the subtle difference between ‘space’, “place” and “localization.” This distinction between “placing” and “localizing” is pivotal. The former involves a relational construction of societal space, wherein identification processes take root. The latter refers to a geolocation point, denoting a dynamic process that may not necessarily be concerned with representing the social relations shaping the space (Citation2001).
4 This paper does not engage with the emerging and important discussion surrounding the cultural representations of climate – a relatively new research area that explores further into Environmental STS studies and Human Geography (see Ariztia, Bravo, and Nuñez Citation2023; Barra Citation2021; Ford, Cameron, and Rubis Citation2016; Hulme Citation2016; Turnbull Citation2000; Whyte Citation2019).
5 The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) is the latest version of the global models’ outputs assessment conducted by the WCRP. The CMIP initiative aims to inform Group 1, working on the physical basis of climate, and the insights from IPCC on the models’ performance and results. Therefore, it has a crucial role in providing sources of information for the IPCC assessment. For a visual representation of the world’s modeling centres see: https://pcmdi.llnl.gov/CMIP6/.
6 The term “countries-non producers of GCMs” will henceforth refer to the global complex models: Atmosphere-Ocean General Circulation Models (AOGCMs) and the Earth System Models (ESMs).
7 Regional climate scenarios (RCS) represent plausible descriptions of how regional climate in the future may develop, based on a coherent and internally consistent set of assumptions about key driving forces (e.g., land use change, urban development, deforestation, population growth, economic activities, energy systems among others) and their interactions. These regional scenarios are primarily generated through statistical or dynamic downscaling of information derived from global complex models. It is important to note that these scenarios do not predict or forecast, rather they serve as a means to provide an insight into potential implications of future developments and actions (IPCC Citation2018). Also, see Mahony and Hulme (Citation2018) for a thoughtful review on RCS as translation tools producing other scales of knowledge that make local climate change governable.
8 The Mexican environmental policy from 2012 to 2018 is a good example of this. The former federal government demonstrated a strong commitment to the climate change agenda, yet simultaneously reduced its financial allocation for it and failed to promote the development of scientific capacities necessary for a better understanding of regional climate change and its associated impacts (SEMARNAT-INECC Citation2009; Citation2012; Citation2018; Vega-López Citation2020).
9 Although we might observe relevant shifts in the way “climatism” is being embraced within right-leaning (centre-right or far-right) political landscapes gaining momentum in Latin American countries as well as in other regions.
10 There are four primary emissions scenarios known as Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs 2.6, 4.6, 6, and 8.5) in the IPCC literature since 2013 (Hulme Citation2023). However, the latest IPCC report from 2021 introduces variations of these RCPs. The socio-climatic futures, referred to as Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), in the literature tend to focus predominantly on economic explanations of the RCPs, which, in my perspective, is somewhat limiting their scope. The conjunction of RCP and SSP results in climate scenarios. For instance, RCP 8.5 represents a high-end emissions scenario, envisioning a world with no-climate policy and projecting temperatures to rise by approximately 4–5°C by 2080–2100. However, this is a contested scenario due to its misleading assumptions about the lack of change in global energy trends, which does not align with the current state of affairs. This discrepancy is evident despite the insufficient energy transformation demanded (Hulme Citation2023). Nevertheless, it is worth noting that this scenario has been the most widely used in peer-reviewed research between 2020 and 2021 (Hulme Citation2023).
11 Currently, there is a debate whether this represents the best way to grasp future environmental changes, particularly for those anticipated to extend beyond the year 2100 (Lyon, Saupe, and Smith Citation2021).
12 Their analysis reviews 37 countries from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and Brazil, Russia, India, and China. However, it omits Mexico and Chile, raising questions about its representativeness for understanding the funding dynamics of social sciences and humanities dedicated to environmental change studies in non-OECD countries.
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Teresa Guadalupe de León Escobedo
Teresa Guadalupe de León Escobedo is a doctoral candidate in Geography from UNAM, in the line of research in Human Geography and Climate Change. Since August 2022, she has been a professor of Geopolitics, at the Center for International Relations of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of UNAM. Her research explores the production dynamics of climate scenarios in Mexico and their uses in policymaking. She aims to contribute to enlarging the geographies of climate science production in the Global South.