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Research to Confront Climate Change Complexity: Intersectionality, Integration, and Innovative Governance
Citation:
Mach, K., K. Jagannathan, L. Shi, L. Turek-Hankins, J. Arnold, C. Brelsford, A. Flores, J. Gao, C. Martín, D. McCollum, R. Moss, J. Niemann, B. Rashleigh, AND P. Reed. Research to Confront Climate Change Complexity: Intersectionality, Integration, and Innovative Governance. Earth’s Future. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, 12(6):e2023EF004392, (2024). https://doi.org/10.1029/2023EF004392
Impact/Purpose:
Moving towards more equitable and actionable complex systems science that can confront climate change complexity requires rethinking structures and pathways to support transdisciplinary coordination of research and practice. The three pillars of our framework, as well as the examples at issue, project, and institutional levels, suggest valuable directions for the complex systems community that will require institutional support and learning.
Description:
Climate impacts increasingly unfold in interlinked systems of people, nature, and infrastructure. The cascading consequences are revealing sometimes surprising connections across sectors and regions, and prospects for climate responses also depend on complex, difficult-to-understand interactions. In this commentary, we build on the innovations of the United States Fifth National Climate Assessment to suggest a framework for understanding and responding to complex climate challenges. This approach involves: (1) integration of disciplines and expertise to understand how intersectionality shapes complex climate impacts and the wide-ranging effects of climate responses, (2) collaborations among diverse knowledge holders to improve responses and better encompass intersectionality, and (3) sustained experimentation with and learning about governance approaches capable of handling the complexity of climate change. Together, these three pillars underscore that usability of climate-relevant knowledge requires transdisciplinary coordination of research and practice. We outline actionable steps for climate research to incorporate intersectionality, integration, and innovative governance, as is increasingly necessary for confronting climate complexity and sustaining equitable, ideally vibrant climate futures.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Research to Confront Climate Change Complexity: Intersectionality, Integration, and Innovative Governance