The social construction of sustainable futures: how models and scenarios limit climate mitigation possibilities

2024/04/25 by Ben Clift, Caroline Kuzemko · 1 voice · 1 citation
Environmental Science · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Sustainability and Climate Change Governance #Climate Change Policy and Economics

paper · doi:10.1080/13563467.2024.2342302

openalex publication_date 2024/04/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15

Abstract

This article shines a light on the act of social construction of climate change mitigation as a policy issue at the hands of expert bodies enjoying epistemic power, notably the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), using Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) as key tools. This is crucial to the politics of tackling climate change as IPCC models and scenarios profoundly shape what are seen as viable futures and mitigation policy options. Analysing how technocratic governance bodies broach climate change, its mitigation, and the associated economic costs and implications, reveals contestations within the technocratic politics of climate change. The particular social construction of mitigation as a policy issue through IAMs and IPCC scenarios has important and real socio-ecological consequences. This engagement with the technocratic politics of mitigation problematises five key assumptions that are fed into modelling, and reveals why and how they matter politically. We also highlight ways in which contestable assumptions built into IPCC IAMs undermine their credibility and usefulness for planning mitigation strategies.

Citations

• The politics of anticipation: the IPCC and the negative emissions technologies experience
• The appallingly bad neoclassical economics of climate change
• Demand-side solutions to climate change mitigation consistent with high levels of well-being
• Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven't We Bent the Global Emissions Curve?

Cited by

• Advancing representations of equity and justice in climate mitigation futures

Discussions

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