Capacities in High-End Scenarios in Europe: An Agency Perspective

Simona Pedde, Katharina Hölscher, Niki Frantzeskaki, Kasper Kok

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterAcademic

Abstract

With growing awareness of the adverse impacts of anthropogenic climate change, it is essential to understand whether and how societal transformation can be achieved. Future society’s ability to transform depends on how human agency can develop within evolving socioeconomic contexts. Scenarios, therefore, provide different enabling conditions and challenges for transformative agency in the short-term and long-term. To this end, we advanced and applied the capacities framework to analyse high-end scenarios, based on the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), from an agency perspective. Agency capacity analysis has shed light on the potential for transformative action that would not be otherwise captured solely with socioeconomic scenario trends. Different potentials to achieve sustainability emerged for the different scenarios and for same SSP across different case study areas. Capacities lead to trade-offs or unexpected opportunities for transformation, such as in socially fragmented SSP3. Social inequality hampers potentials for transformation, even when challenges to mitigation are low.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationTransformative Climate Governance
Subtitle of host publicationA Capacities Perspective to Systematise, Evaluate and Guide Climate Action
Place of PublicationCham
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Pages359-380
Number of pages22
Edition1
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-030-49040-9
ISBN (Print)978-3-030-49039-3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 Aug 2020
Externally publishedYes

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