This chapter discusses leading problems linked to energy that the world is now confronting and to propose some ideas concerning possible solutions. Oil deserves special attention among all energy sources. Since the beginning of 1981, it has merely been continuing and enhancing the downward movement in consumption and prices caused by excessive rises, especially for light crudes such as those from Africa, and the slowing down of worldwide economic growth. Densely-populated oil-producing countries need to produce to live, to pay for their food and their equipment. If the economic growth of the industrialized countries were to be 4%, even if investment in the rational use of energy were pushed to the limit and the development of nonpetroleum energy sources were also pursued actively, it would be extremely difficult to prevent a sharp rise in prices. It is evident that it is absolutely necessary to pursue actively the development of coal, natural gas, and nuclear power if a physical shortage of energy is not to block economic growth.

World energy outlook

There is emerging agreement that sustainability challenges require new ways of knowledge production and decision-making. One key aspect of sustainability science, therefore, is the involvement of actors from outside academia into the research process in order to integrate the best available knowledge, reconcile values and preferences, as well as create ownership for problems and solution options. Transdisciplinary, community-based, interactive, or participatory research approaches are often suggested as appropriate means to meet both the requirements posed by real-world problems as well as the goals of sustainability science as a transformational scientific field. Dispersed literature on these approaches and a variety of empirical projects applying them make it difficult for interested researchers and practitioners to review and become familiar with key components and design principles of how to do transdisciplinary sustainability research. Starting from a conceptual model of an ideal–typical transdisciplinary research process, this article synthesizes and structures such a set of principles from various strands of the literature and empirical experiences. We then elaborate on them, looking at challenges and some coping strategies as experienced in transdisciplinary sustainability projects in Europe, North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. The article concludes with future research needed in order to further enhance the practice of transdisciplinary sustainability research.

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Transdisciplinary research in sustainability science: practice, principles, and challenges

This paper reports on the barriers that members of the UKpublic perceive to engaging with climatechange. It draws upon three mixed-method studies, with an emphasis on the qualitative data which offer an in-depth insight into how people make sense of climatechange. The paper defines engagement as an individual's state, comprising three elements: cognitive, affective and behavioural. A number of common barriers emerge from the three studies, which operate broadly at ‘individual’ and ‘social’ levels. These major constraints to individual engagement with climatechange have implications for achieving significant reductions in greenhouse gases in the UK. We argue that targeted and tailored information provision should be supported by wider structural change to enable citizens and communities to reduce their carbon dependency. Policyimplications for effective engagement are discussed.

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Barriers perceived to engaging with climate change among the UK public and their policy implications

Categorising tools for sustainability assessment

This article introduces transition management as a new governance approach for sustainable development. Sustainable development is used here as a common notion referring to those persistent problems in (Western industrialized) societies that can only be dealt with on the very long term (decades or more) through specific types of network and decision-making processes. Based on interdisciplinary research into complex processes of long term, structural change in society, basic tenets for complexity-based governance are formulated. These tenets are translated into a framework that distinguishes between four different types of governance activities and their respective roles in societal transitions. This framework can be used for implementation of governance strategies and instruments. The approach and framework have been developed deductively and inductively in the Netherlands since 2000. This article presents the theoretical basis of transition management and will be illustrated by examples from transition management practice, especially the Dutch national energy transition program.

Transition management for sustainable development: A prescriptive, complexity-based governance framework

Part I. Concepts and Insights: 1. Citizenship participation in sustainability assessments Bernd Kasemir, Carlo C. Jaeger and Jill Jager 2. Contexts of citizen participation Clair Gough, Eric Darier, Bruna de Marchi, Silvio Funtowicz, Robin Grove-White, Angela Guimaraes Pereira, Simon Shackley and Brian Wynne 3. Models as metaphors Jerry Ravetz Part II. Experiences with IA-Focus Groups: 4. Collage processes and citizens' visions for the future Bernd Kasemir, Urs Dahinden, Asa Gerger Swartling, Daniela Schibli, Ralf Schule, David T...bara and Carlo C. Jager 5. Citizen interaction with computer models Urs Dahinden, Cristina Querol, Jill Jager and Mans Nilsson 6. Citizens' reports on climate strategies Cristina Querol, Asa Gerger Swartling, Bernd Kasemir and David T...bara Part III. Further Forms of Participation: 7. Venture capital and climate policy Bernd Kasemir, Ferenc Toth and Vanessa Masing 8. COOL: exploring options for CO2 reduction in a participatory mode Willemijn Tuinstra, Marleen van de Kerkhoff, Matthijs Hisschemoller and Arthur Mol 9. Expert stakeholder participation in the Thames region Thomas E. Downing, Karen Bakker, Kate Lonsdale, Neil Summerton, Erik Swyngedouw and Consuelo Giansante 10. On the art of scenario development Chris Anastasi Part IV. Future Perspectives: 11. From projects to program in integrated assessment research Marjolein B. A. van Asselt and Jan Rotmans 12. Citizen participation and developing country agendas Kilaparti Ramakrishna 13. Linking the citizen to governance for sustainable climate futures Susanne Stoll-Kleemann, Tim O'Riordan and Tom R. Burns.

Public Participation in Sustainability Science: A Handbook

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Public Participation in Sustainability Science.

In the beginnings of climate change policy, results from the natural sciences were essential for motivating the establishment of global change diplomacy. At present it is increasingly being recognised that these results must be combined with findings from the social sciences if effective climate policy is to emerge. In particular, participatory techniques for the involvement of stakeholders, ranging from ordinary citizens to business people, are needed. The paper presents the methodology of Integrated Assessment (IA)-Focus Groups, designed primarily for involving citizens in Integrated Assessments of complex issues like climate change. It focuses on collages produced by European IA-Focus Group participants faced with alternative possibilities of energy use. The results suggest that citizens across Europe see strong reductions of current levels of energy use as more desirable than a business-as-usual perspective. Moreover, they indicate that the opinion formation by citizens is by no means restricted to unambiguous stereotypes. We relate these findings to the concept of `reflexive modernisation', stressing the importance of uncertainty and ambiguity in environmental debates. Implications for representing uncertainty in IA models are discussed.

Citizens’ perspectives on climate change and energy use

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Citizen participation in sustainability assessments

Integrated assessment (IA) is a maturing research approach aiming at providing decision support on complex environment-related problems. Although interdisciplinary research is a pre-condition for IA, in order to reach the goals that IA has set it is necessary to go beyond interdisciplinary research efforts alone. There are two major reasons for this: the nature of democratic decision-making, and the nature of complex issues. The views held by stakeholders and the public at large are an integral part of democratic decision-making processes. Integrated assessments, which aim to support decision-making in an appropriate and relevant way, should therefore synthesise interdisciplinary scientific insights with a wide variety of societal views. Furthermore, this paper argues that the sustainability issues with which IA is concerned are complex problems, in the sense that they cannot be fully described or solved in any unique way. One of the reasons for this is the essentially contested character of the concept "sustainable development". Against this background, the search for techniques of articulation and interaction of multiple perspectives is a major challenge for the IA community. Where the nature of democratic processes asks for taking into account views of a diversity of actors, the nature of the issues considered demands that multiple perspectives are included in integrated assessments. Decision support building on a single scientific description is therefore not at all sufficient for addressing complex problems in a democratic decision-making context. To this end, this paper argues that it seems promising to develop techniques that combine scientific assessment tools with public participation methods. In order to contribute to the search for such new IA techniques, this paper discusses some new avenues in IA modelling, and the application of a well-established social scientific tool, namely focus groups, in integrated assessment.

Bernd Kasemir

Papers

Public Participation in Sustainability Science: A Handbook

Public Participation in Sustainability Science.

Citizens’ perspectives on climate change and energy use

Citizen participation in sustainability assessments

Integrated assessment of sustainable development: multiple perspectives in interaction