Download Overall scientific concept with short-term and long

Overall scientific concept with short-term and long-term goals
With the onset of industrialization, humans began adding significantly to the atmospheric
concentration of greenhouse gases, in particular through carbon dioxide emissions resulting
from burning fossil fuels. Anthropogenic climate change is now one of the main problems of
the 21st century. It is a global political priority issue as it poses a real and potentially catastrophic threat to human and other life on this planet (IPCC 2007a,b). One can without exaggeration describe the situation as the most serious global environmental problem that humanity has ever faced (Gardiner 2011). However, strategies to deal with climate change and
its possible consequences are imbued with uncertainty, that is with probabilistic uncertainty,
Knightian uncertainty, and ignorance as defined below.
This DK will contribute to developing a better understanding of climate change uncertainties
and, by doing so, will also contribute to developing criteria for thresholds. We define thresholds as critical points, where a small change in (the value of a control parameter of) a system
suffices to induce a qualitative change in the system or in different systems. Qualitative
change can be and is understood differently by the different participating disciplines. Within
normative theory, for instance, qualitative change is often understood as a difference in kind
rather than degree, for example, the difference between the type of claim agents may have
to the satisfaction of their basic needs and the type of claim agents may have to their welfare
being improved from already high levels. On the other hand, and in particular in the participating empirical sciences, qualitative change is often understood as radical quantitative
change, that can be signaled, for example, by significant change in the ratios between values
of different key system variables or by significant change in their time rates of change. Additionally, for the empirical research the threshold time is defined as the instant in time when a
threshold is crossed. Typically, both – the threshold value of a control parameter and the
threshold time – can only be known with some uncertainty.
Thresholds can occur in natural and in social systems. Crossing a threshold can be understood in terms of natural phenomena, like temperature of a phase transition. Often the crossing of a threshold will depend on human action, e.g. numbers of adopters of new technologies in an economic system, and in that way may be considered an internal-control thresh-
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old. Thresholds may also be externally induced, e.g. like a physical climate parameter inducing the relevant effects on a system of interest, e.g., the economic system.
The DK will investigate not just any thresholds, but will rather focus on the thresholds that
can be considered critical. Critical thresholds are understood as being those thresholds, the
crossing of which has consequences that from societal and normative perspectives are rated
important. The concept of thresholds and the uncertainty of climate change and its effects
will be connected with the development and evaluation of possible strategies to cope with
climate change. Therefore, research projects undertaken within the proposed DK will contribute to answering three questions:
1) How do we understand and deal with climate change uncertainties in the natural and social sciences as well as from the perspective of normative theories?
2) What are critical thresholds of environmental, social and economic systems considering
their vulnerability, and how are these thresholds related to the normative threshold of sufficiency, that is, the threshold of well-being below which persons’ basic rights are infringed or
violated?
3) What are scientifically sound, technologically and institutionally feasible, economically efficient, and ethically defensible and sustainable strategies to cope with climate change, particularly taking into account the problems of implementing them in an environment characterized by uncertainties and thresholds?
Synthesizing these three questions, the core of the proposed DK can be summed up in one
general research question: What are critical climate change uncertainties and thresholds and
what are ethically defensible strategies to cope with them?
Here the terms vulnerability and coping ability need clarification. Vulnerability is a dynamic
concept with two core aspects. The first aspect concerns the susceptibility of a system to
impacts over time and the second concerns the capacity of a system to adapt to these impacts. This second aspect of vulnerability is captured by the concept of coping ability. Coping
ability describes the ability of a system to deal with changes, both in terms of reacting to
these changes and in terms of reducing the factors driving the changes. Here, coping ability
refers to the ability of the relevant systems to cope with climate change. It thus encompasses
both adaptive and mitigative capacities, as well as additional factors required to transform the
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capacity into action on climate change, for example incentives provided by social, institutional, political and economic structures.
Answering the above research questions requires contributions from many disciplines. The
task is further complicated by the fact that there are several different relevant time scales and
different societal units which need to be the objects of the inquiry. Interdisciplinary dialogue
and understanding is indispensable for analyzing the meaning and significance of the implications of climate change and the development of strategies to cope with them. Interdisciplinary research is a tremendous challenge which will be fully taken up in the DK, since we will
integrate descriptive, explanatory and normative approaches. It requires a truly mutual understanding which goes far beyond superficially noting work done in other disciplines. Integrating different research projects from various fields not only allows us to tackle research
questions that would otherwise slip through disciplinary cracks, but will also support the doctoral students in strengthening the relevant competences to successfully participate in interdisciplinary research. The motivation to engage in this endeavor is scientific in nature: a
shared interdisciplinary understanding is a sine qua non of pursuing meaningful cooperative
and interdisciplinary research whose results will be integrated in the dissertation projects
within the DK.
The research interests of the members of the DK range from empirical to highly theoretical
research, from understanding the natural causes and implications of climate change and the
advancement of modeling and measurement instruments to problems that different actors
face in reacting to climate change induced consequences, to the economic and ethical evaluation of different coping strategies and the definition of the underlying evaluative frameworks. This wide range perfectly matches the interdisciplinary approach of the DK, which will
draw on first hand expertise in all involved fields of research.
Some examples for how several isolated research topics will profit from fruitful cooperation
within the DK are as follows: ethical analyses of possible violations of basic rights of future
people can gain by developing an adequate understanding of empirical studies on the expected consequences under different climate change scenarios and the vulnerability of social
and economic systems to those impacts. The empirical data given by, e.g., the latest IPCC
report (see especially IPCC 2007b, AR4 WII, pp. 19, 49, 297, 393, 557, 791) are in need of
interpretation. The connections between such findings concerning the impacts of climate
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change on ecological systems and the imposition of the risk of rights violation on those who
will live in the future are not straight forward. There has been little systematic research focused on this connection (Shue 1993, ICHRP 2008). Furthermore, the normative evaluation
of different policy options needs to take into account their costs and feasibility, while the assessment of climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies and technologies simultaneously also depends on their ethical justifiability. The close collaboration between the different disciplines in the DK will therefore create an interdisciplinary space for constant exchange of information and cross evaluation of research results.
We will intensify our interdisciplinary approach in the DK by examining differing disciplinary
understandings of the main concepts that underlie our key research questions, namely (critical) thresholds, vulnerabilities and coping strategies. One of the overarching goals is the development of shared concepts in order to allow the various disciplines to “speak with a common language” on a scientific level, while at the same time providing tools at the level of the
disciplines which seem to be particularly suited to deal with some of the most intriguing challenges of the problems at hand. Such an interdisciplinary endeavor can be expected to break
new scientific ground. Over and above the many links that exist between the dissertation
projects, the DK creates a web that connects the different research activities in addressing
the main research questions. The colloquia, seminars, workshops and summer schools of
the DK (as described in 1.8 DK-specific training programme) will enable both members of
faculty and the DK researchers to explore the linkages between the research projects and
research questions.
Within the DK, researchers from the participating disciplines will work together in answering
the three main research questions. As shown in the Table “Research questions and showcases (dissertation projects)” below, each of the main research questions is being investigated by about the same number of the proposed PhD projects. For the first two main research
questions as introduced above, we propose to carry out dissertation projects that belong to
the three research areas of the DK, namely, natural sciences, social sciences and normative
theory (philosophy). The third research question concerns how to best respond to climate
change and we propose to have dissertation projects examining this question that belong to
a broad range of disciplines of the social sciences and to normative theory. (As some of the
PhD projects as described in the showcases in section 5 below address more than one of the
main research question, they are listed twice in the Table below.)
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Table – Research questions and showcases (dissertation projects):
Research question 1: How do we understand Showcases: Birk 1; Foelsche 1; Foelsche
and deal with climate change uncertainties in 2; Kirchengast 1; Kirchengast 2, Meyer 1;
the natural and social sciences as well as from Steiner 1; Steiner 2; Sturn 1
the perspective of normative theories?
Research question 2: What are critical thresh- Showcases: Birk 2; Bednar-Friedl 2;
olds of environmental, social and economic sys- Meyer 2; Kirchengast 2; Posch 1; Sass 1;
tems considering their vulnerability and how are Sass 2, Steiner 2, Steininger 1; Sturn 1
these thresholds related to the normative
threshold of sufficiency, that is, the threshold of
well-being below which persons’ basic rights are
infringed or violated?
Research question 3: What are scientifically
sound, technologically and institutionally feasible, economically efficient, and ethically defensible and sustainable strategies to cope with
climate change, particularly taking into account
the problems of implementing them in an environment characterized by uncertainties and
thresholds?
Showcases: Baumgartner 1; Baumgartner 2; Bednar-Friedl 1; Posch 2;
Meyer 2; Steininger 2; Sturn 2; Winiwarter 1; Winiwarter 2
However, the projects are much closer linked than such a summary table can indicate, and in
two ways. First, many of the projects are complementary in the sense that the results of one
are required by the other; second in the sense that the assumptions underlying one project
are investigated and better defined by another.
For example, regarding research question 1, there is not only a direct link between the improvement of knowledge on atmospheric and hydrological processes and changes leading to
extreme events (Kirchengast, Steiner), the improvement of hydro-meteorological data collection and analyses (Foelsche), groundwater modeling (Birk), and geomorphological processes
(Sass), but also between this research on moisture and precipitation changes, geomorphic
hazards and groundwater recharge capacities, and research questions on regional and local
water resources management and its influence on the development of different economic
sectors like tourism (Posch, Baumgartner, Steininger).
With respect to research question 2, close ties exist for instance between the dissertation
projects on intergenerational justice and the imposition of risks of rights violations (Meyer)
and those on moving thresholds and international justice in questions of burden sharing
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(Bednar-Friedl) as well as the projects dealing with the underlying normative framework for
the evaluation of climate change policies and national climate policy instruments under international constraints (Sturn) and to some degree with projects dealing with potentially severe
hydrological change and extremes (Kirchengast, Foelsche, Birk) and natural hazards (Sass).
With respect to research question 3 and within the social sciences, the projects aiming at
developing criteria for the assessment of policies and policy instruments are closely related
to those on climate change impacts and induced costs in different economic sectors and regions (Steininger), the economic and social uncertainties and thresholds for the diffusion and
adoption of distributed renewable energy systems (Steininger, Posch) as well as the sociotechnical factors that lead to technological transitions (Posch). These projects on the macroeconomic level create an important background for projects focusing on innovation and transition options and strategies of different climate sensitive economic sectors and actors in the
context of sustainable development (Baumgartner), and pathways towards a low carbon society and the economic feasibility of associated technical measures (Winiwarter). At the
same time, these projects are also connected to some of the projects of the natural scientists
in the DK as some of these projects will focus on regions and local actors (cf. comments on
research question 1 above).
The projects also supplement each other. Across disciplines the DK will deal with climate
change and its consequences on many different levels. Considerations of intergenerational
justice are universalistic and this is also true for many aspects concerning the evaluative
frameworks (Bednar-Friedl, Meyer, Sturn), while some of the economic projects reflect a
strong interrelation between the global, national and sub-national level reaching all the way
down to specific sectors, regions and actors (Steininger, Sturn). Due to a lack of an effective
global regulatory framework for coping with the challenges of greenhouse gas emissions and
climate change induced consequences, special emphasis will be given to the viability and
efficiency of national and sub-national policies, and to the adaptation and innovation potential
of regional entities and single actors, like companies.
The research projects of the natural and climate sciences will also be on the global to regional (Kirchengast, Steiner) and regional to local level (Birk, Foelsche, Sass, Steiner). Research on the regional and local level can be expected to lead not only to an advancement of
small-scale meteorological, hydrological, and geomorphological observations and their bene6 of 41
fits for improved modeling, but also to the development of regional model datasets and information that can be further used for economic analyses of future developments in different
economic sectors.
Another way in which all the projects in the DK are linked is the following. As is explained in
more detail below, all the projects in some way investigate or aid the investigation of thresholds – what they are, the effects of crossing them, whether and if so how those effects matter, and so on. These investigations (again as explained below) are carried out in the light of
the uncertainty inherent in (predicting the effects of) climate change. According to George
Bernard Shaw, England and America are two countries divided by a common language, and
much the same can be said of scientific research on climate change. In the case of the DK
(and the academic community as a whole), the fact that the same words are used – uncertainties, thresholds, critical thresholds, and so on – obscures the fact that these words are
used in different ways and for different purposes.
To take just one example (again, illustrated in more detail below): in normative theory as it is
represented in this DK, namely through the theory of intergenerational sufficientarianism, the
most relevant threshold is understood to be a basic level of well-being such that if people fall
below it their basic rights are infringed or violated while, as might be expected, the natural
and social sciences have much more (morally) neutral conceptions of thresholds. Furthermore, even in cases where the meaning of the concepts being used is more similar, the purposes for which they are used differ widely depending on the project (and more generally,
the discipline) that uses them.
A fundamental premise of the DK is that this is an unfortunate situation, which we wish to
help improve. More precisely, while it is legitimate and necessary that each discipline uses
and understands relevant concepts in its own way and for its own purposes, it is unfortunate
that there is little overarching shared understanding of these concepts, because such a
shared understanding is a prerequisite for the disciplines to be able to usefully talk to each
other. For our DK the work towards a common language is essential if we are to make progress on the complex issues of climate change and its effects.
However, successful common languages do not evolve through some top-down imposition of
shared meanings and understandings. Rather, when it comes to developing a common language, the DK opts for what we may call a bottom-up approach. It is necessary for research7 of 41
ers working in each discipline, with their different conceptions and concerns, to be continually
confronted with the need to communicate with researchers from other disciplines, who each
have their conceptions and concerns. It is only through this continual encounter that a common language will be increasingly created.
Put another way, while we cannot create a common language by decree, we can create conditions favorable to its generation. And this is precisely one of the major aims of the DK. It is
structured in such a way as to make interdisciplinary encounters unavoidable, and will thereby compel students and researchers to attempt to develop a shared language, while at the
same time rewarding them for these efforts with improved mutual understanding and broadened horizons. While preparing the proposal, the applicants – many of whom work and have
worked together in interdisciplinary projects – engaged in precisely such a process and indeed found it extremely fruitful.
The DK as a whole can be understood in this sense also as an attempt to create the conditions for true interdisciplinary communication and research that will allow climate change
science, knowledge transfer and public climate change communications to take the next step
forward. The interdisciplinary approach and the different topics and perspectives of the dissertation projects clearly require the use of very diverse methods in the DK.
In the projects of the natural sciences within the DK mainly process-based mathematical
models will be used, complemented by an array of statistical analysis techniques. Such physical models are employed, for example, to identify the processes controlling groundwater
dynamics and threshold behavior in historical data records (e.g., air temperature, precipitation, groundwater levels, spring and river discharge). They are also used for parameter studies and sensitivity analyses to identify potential feedbacks between natural and socioeconomic systems that may lead to crossing some critical thresholds.
In order to answer the research questions related to coping strategies used by organizations
to deal with climate change, a set of suitable methodologies based on the principle of methodological pluralism will be used. Theoretical basics for this research are management science, decision theory, systems theory and innovation theory with a focus on the transition of
systems. Methodologies to be applied include systems analysis, different assessment methodologies, quantitative and qualitative methods of empirical research, case study approach
and qualitative content analysis.
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The economic contribution to the DK will have to span a wide range between operating with
well-known modeling tools (like multi-country multi-sector computable general equilibrium
models) for fairly well-understood problems, to more far-reaching, potentially innovative research strategies for managing climate change risks and thresholds, informed by interdisciplinary interaction within the DK. As economic research includes positive as well as normative analysis, economists play a mediatory role between natural scientists and philosophers
within the overall interdisciplinary architecture of DK.
The philosophical and normative-theoretical contributions concern interconnected levels of
abstraction: 1. With respect to the first and second research questions as introduced above,
the normative-theoretical projects aim at developing a general account of the normative significance of imposing risks of rights violations on future people. 2. Such an account aims at
providing a basis for answering the question of how to act in the least unjust way (e.g., Meyer
and Sanklecha 2011a,b). 3. With respect to the third research question the projects investigate on the level of applied normative theory what this general account implies for important
policy dimensions of responding to climate change.
These levels of research are, furthermore, interlinked in at least two ways: First, the projects
rely on a method called ‘reflective equilibrium’ (Rawls 1951; 1971), where the projects attempt to refine considered moral judgments and to ease out contradictions between apparently conflicting judgments and principles (Daniels 1980; Heyd 1992). Second, in assessing
the particular policy issues, the projects investigate issues of transitional justice, understood
to include the question of how to normatively assess policies under specific less than ideal
circumstances in terms of their justice effects. In the absence of a robust and integrative theory for how to proceed under non-ideal circumstances, the projects aim to identify how policies should be targeted and assessed given our actual constrained starting position. Nonideal ethical theorizing is systematically connected to the results of other disciplines as problems of applied political philosophy and ethics depend not only on normative considerations
but also on an adequate empirical understanding of the subject matter. How normative principles can guide relevant actors in non-ideal situations has become the focus of much research in political philosophy (see, e.g., Rawls 2001; Murphy 2000; Buchanan 2004; Sen
2006; Swift 2008).
1.1.1. Main research questions
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After this general description of the aims, the scientific background, the interdisciplinary setting, the relation between the dissertation projects and the scales and methods employed in
the DK we now exemplify our approach by spelling out our main research questions in detail.
This will also highlight some of the interconnections between the different disciplines and
therefore demonstrate the need for interdisciplinary research in this area.
1. How do we understand and deal with climate change uncertainties in the natural
and social sciences as well as from the perspective of normative theories?
Knowledge of and predictions about the environmental and socio-economic effects of anthropogenic climate change are subject to uncertainties. Though we can expect to gain a
better understanding of the effects as climate science advances and climate change continues, many important questions concerning possible consequences and outcomes of global
warming cannot currently be answered with a satisfactory degree of certainty. In a first rough
approximation, we may distinguish three types of uncertainty: probabilistic uncertainty,
Knightian uncertainty, and ignorance.
In cases of probabilistic uncertainty, typically defined on metric system variables and commonplace in the natural sciences, we have sufficient knowledge to assign a probability to
each of the possible outcomes (though the assigned probability density functions may often
be just approximations). In cases of Knightian uncertainty, sources of uncertainty include
some which cannot be dealt with by probabilistic methods; moreover, we may lack
knowledge of the range of possible outcomes (for instance, of the whole range of relevant
consequences of some policy choice). In cases of ignorance (or deep uncertainty) we have
no probabilistic knowledge at all and/or no knowledge about the outcomes (Lempert 2002).
Regarding climate change and its effects, decision makers are often confronted with Knightian uncertainty where neither all potential states nor their associated probabilities are known.
Sources of uncertainty include various forms of epistemic uncertainty, including inherent randomness leading to “statistical uncertainty” (which is treated in terms of probability distributions and related uncertainty measures), measurement problems leading to “observational
uncertainty” as well as more complex sources such as “model uncertainty” (partly occasioned
by the fact that theoretical models are incomplete representations of real-world processes
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and cannot capture all conceivable interdependencies in their entirety, which is unavoidable
but a possible source of “representativeness error”).
In the context of complex systems, including the Earth system and most socio-economic systems relevant for the problems at hand, not only one but several sources of epistemic uncertainty (including the more “difficult” ones) can be expected to play a role. Moreover, socioeconomic systems are further complicated by the logic of strategic interaction and the ambiguities of human behavior, triggering uncertainty which may inter alia affect the viability of
coping strategies.
The quest for ways and means to deal with disagreement among experts, partly occasioned
by the plurality of modeling approaches (such as integrated assessment models vs. bottomup models with higher sectoral/spatial detail), also poses challenges for normative theory,
such as how to aggregate possibly divergent information in a situation of social choice.
Moreover, we face climate change uncertainties on different levels, with respect to the relations between emissions and temperature rise and other climate variables, between these
climate variables and their impact on environmental, social and economic systems, and between such climate change induced consequences and persons’ rights being infringed or
violated. This creates the demand for an interdisciplinary investigation of these different aspects of uncertainty to gain a better understanding of their underlying causes and/or implications in other fields. Approaching the questions of climate change induced uncertainties the
DK can build on established faculty competences in these topics and will contribute to future
research by connecting those different aspects of uncertainty.
Developing this better understanding of uncertainties with respect to emission levels, temperature rise and other climate variables and its consequences for environmental systems is
at the heart of the empirical research and modeling processes of earth sciences and physical
climate science. The DK can build on a large expertise in this area due to extensive and ongoing research in the Wegener Center for Climate and Global Change and its partners in the
Institute of Earth Sciences. The Center has long been involved in the scientific debate on
uncertainties of state-of-the-art climate models, from global to local scale, and their possible
improvement by a better quality of global, regional and local climate monitoring. It has contributed especially to high-performance computation, new models, and tools for climate monitoring and model evaluation.
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Projections from global and regional climate models are basic for research on impacts of
climate change on hydrological fluxes and groundwater resources. However, due to the limitations of the climate models these projections and consequently the results from the impact
studies are subject to high uncertainties. This creates a shared research interest in the improvement of regional climate models and monitoring tools and their implementation, which
will result in close cooperation on the first research question of the DK (see e.g. the projects
of Foelsche and Birk).
The analysis of social and economic systems involves both uncertainties related to the possible consequences of temperature rises and the change of other climate variables and uncertainties with respect to human and social behavior and the complex interrelation between
environmental, social, political and economic systems. For instance, adaptation to climate
change in terms of natural hazards (flood protection etc.) is triggered more strongly by extreme weather events than by gradual temperature changes, or financial barriers preclude
energy-efficiency savings (e.g. insulation of buildings) despite leading to cost savings. Moreover, uncertainties also create methodological questions.
In economics, a standard welfare economic framework is the expected utility framework
where a risk adverse social planer chooses an optimal policy to maximize the discounted
stream of benefits and costs over long periods of time. In situations of uncertainty, however,
where knowledge of the benefits of mitigation is incomplete or based on speculative judgments (e.g. for the value of a human life), and where the development of costs of mitigation
over time is characterized by similar uncertainties, results from such optimization frameworks
usually do not give an accurate account of the benefits and costs of climate policy and hence
may not serve as the basis for optimal decisions (Ackerman et al. 2009; Füssel 2007; Lempert and Collins 2007).
In order to overcome these shortcomings, economists have come up with several solutions,
which will be explored in the DK. First, in order to better reflect uncertainties, ensembles of
different scenarios and models as well as different parameter constellations have been developed and examined. Second, climate thresholds have been employed as constraints on
temperature rise e.g. in integrated assessment models (IAMs) (McInerney and Keller 2008;
Bahn et al. 2006). Third, the discounted utility framework has been replaced by other decision making frameworks.
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Prominent examples of alternative frameworks include: “robust decision making”, where
strategies are selected which e.g. perform well under different potential developments (Lempert and Collins 2007); approaches implementing the precautionary principle (CiriacyWantrup 1968); “cost effectiveness analysis”, in which a predetermined policy target, such as
the +2°C target put forward by the European Union, is sought to be achieved at minimal cost
(Ackerman et al. 2009).
From a normative perspective, uncertainties play an important role in our understanding of
harms and rights violations. When we attempt to determine our duties towards future people
we are confronted with the problem that our knowledge of the environmental and socioeconomic effects of anthropogenic climate change is subject to considerable uncertainties.
Explained briefly, the normative-philosophical projects are based on two main assumptions.
First, the basic empirical assumption is that emission-generating activities by currently living
people often benefit them, but imply in their long term cumulative effect a risk of setbacks to
basic interests of future people. As basic human interests we identify the interest in survival,
health, sufficiency and autonomy because they clearly seem to be among the constitutive
elements of human well-being (Shue 1999; Caney 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010; Bell 2011). This
empirical assumption is very well supported (IPCC 2007b, pp. 7-14). Second, the basic normative assumption is that such basic interests of people are protected by universal claim
rights with general correlative duties as a matter of justice; currently living as well as future
people are bearers of such rights; future people have such rights vis-à-vis currently living
people (Meyer 2008).
With respect to the basic empirical assumption we have to consider uncertainties based on
the inherent complexity of the climate system and aleatory uncertainties (the inherent randomness associated with natural hazard events) as well as the specific uncertainties associated with anthropogenic climate change. However, uncertainties are also involved in the relation of climate change effects and persons’ rights being infringed or violated in the future.
Furthermore, our knowledge of future social circumstances and the people who will live under them, and how they will live, is (highly) uncertain. These uncertainties do not only concern climate change induced consequences for future people, but also the consequences of
our actions and policies.
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The situation is characterized by our bringing about the possibility of benefiting or harming
future generations. However, and this concerns the interpretation of the basic normative assumption, the normative relevance of the imposition of risks of harms is far from clear. That
is, even though an increasing number of researchers investigate various aspects of ‘climate
justice’ (e.g., Shue 1993, 1999; Singer 2002; Gardiner 2004, 2009, 2010, 2011; Caney 2005,
2006; Page 2006; Meyer and Roser 2006, 2009; Gosseries 2007; Hayward 2007; Meyer
2009b, 2013; Gosseries and Meyer 2009; Meyer and Sanklecha 2011b), this problem of imposing risks of rights violations of future people has not received its due attention yet. The
philosophical projects will approach this question on two levels: First, the projects will contribute to the development of a normative interpretation of risk imposition, namely a rightsbased account of intergenerational sufficientarianism, which relies on thresholds. Second,
the practical relevance of such a rights-based account of intergenerational sufficientarianism
will be investigated by analyzing how it can provide guidance in choosing between particular
climate policies. The philosophical studies will also assess the normative significance of selected critical thresholds that the non-philosophical projects will investigate.
2. What are critical thresholds of environmental, social and economic systems considering their vulnerability and how are these thresholds related to the normative
threshold of sufficiency, that is, the threshold of well-being below which persons’
basic rights are infringed or violated?
Some of the uncertainties in regard to the relationship between emissions, temperature rises
and other consequences are due to so called global climate tipping points, e.g., the disintegration of the Greenland and/or West Antarctic ice sheets, persistent changes of the North
Atlantic thermohaline circulation or the Indian Monsoon system, release of carbon stored in
permafrost or methane hydrates, and a dieback of the Amazon rainforest (e.g., Lenton et al.
2008, 2011). On the global level, planetary boundaries have been defined as thresholds for
essential biophysical processes and subsystems (climate change, ocean acidification, stratospheric ozone depletion, interferences with the nitrogen and phosphorus cycle, global freshwater use, land use change, biodiversity loss, desertification, atmospheric aerosol loading,
chemical pollution). According to Rockström et al. (2009), three of these processes (i.e. climate change, biodiversity loss, human interference to the natural nitrogen cycle) have already passed critical thresholds according to their definitions.
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These tipping points and global thresholds are not the only ones relevant in climate change
and its effects. Generally, a threshold can be defined as a value of a control parameter of a
system, where a small change of this parameter suffices to induce a qualitative change in the
system. Qualitative change is, for example, signaled by significant change in the ratios between values of different key system variables or by significant change in their time rates of
change. Usually the threshold value and what kind of qualitative change will occur can only
be known with some uncertainty. Also the threshold time, the instant in time when a threshold value is crossed, can usually be known with some uncertainty only. Such thresholds exist
not only for geo- and ecosystems but also for social, economic, and political systems which
may exhibit thresholds or tipping points separating two or more “regimes”, e.g., in terms of
physical, ecological and human capital stocks (Walker et al. 2010). Whether or not a threshold phenomenon occurs depends on the external forcing conditions, the internal-threshold
opportunities determined by the system properties, and potentially the initial state of the system (e.g. Zehe and Sivapalan 2009).
The DK will investigate not just any threshold, but focus on what are considered critical ones.
Critical thresholds are understood as being those thresholds the crossing of which has consequences that from societal and normative perspectives are rated important. The DK investigates the relevance of such critical thresholds from the perspectives of the natural sciences,
social sciences and normative theory. This approach will part from the traditional ways based
on the definition of climate change scenarios by natural science and the subsequent analyses of their consequences in different areas. Rather, projects of the DK set out to explore
and assess climate change related thresholds in different areas and to ask how to react to
certain threats of crossing such thresholds.
Our approach involves first the analysis of the responsiveness of a system (or coupled systems) to climate and non-climate change, thereby providing insight into the system’s vulnerability and critical thresholds; only then is the risk of crossing critical thresholds evaluated
using climate information. Thus, the focus is shifted to the systems of interest, and the climate change scenarios defined by natural sciences are used “to inform, rather than drive, the
analysis” (Brown and Wilby 2012). This further requires that climate change scenarios will be
integrated with socio-economic and policy scenarios as different assumptions on develop15 of 41
ment paths need to be consistent with each other. Such an approach will lead to a better
understanding of the interplay between different threshold phenomena and positive and negative feedbacks between different systems. The expected added value of the DK is also reflected by connecting these different critical thresholds across disciplines and projects. While
always indicating a general change in system behavior, the significance of exceeding thresholds is often understood differently by different disciplines.
Differing understandings and examples of thresholds in natural sciences, social sciences,
and normative theories to be considered within the DK include the following:
a)
Natural Sciences:
In the physical climate sciences thresholds have received increasing attention after Lenton et
al. (2008) introduced climate “tipping points” as critical thresholds at which a small change
triggers a qualitative change in the further evolution of a system and defined the relation of
tipping points to notions like abrupt, irreversible, and self-amplifying climate change. The
same work also introduced “tipping elements”, meaning large-scale regional subsystems of
the Earth system where a key control parameter may cross a critical value, a threshold,
which qualitatively changes crucial system features. Furthermore, criteria for “policy relevance” were added, suggesting focus on thresholds of high relevance to people and societies within “political” and “ethical” time horizons (decades to centuries, but not millennia).
Methods to identify and analyze such thresholds have been described, e.g., by Held and
Kleinen (2004), Lenton (2011), Levermann et al. (2012), and references therein.
More generally, threshold phenomena have been addressed by various branches of the natural sciences for many decades. In particular, thresholds in geomorphology have been intensively discussed at least since the late 1970s (e.g. Schumm 1979, Coates and Vitek, 1980).
Geomorphological processes are a paradigm of processes governed by thresholds. This
holds true in particular for gravitative mass movements like landslides which are triggered
when certain input parameters are exceeded. The same is valid for rockfalls, debris flows
and fluvial systems as well. In addition to such static thresholds, the susceptibility of geomorphic systems towards abrupt changes can vary with time, e.g. an unstable slope can
gradually loose stability by progressive weathering or slowly changing pore water levels, so
that the necessary trigger event gradually becomes smaller.
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Tipping points in geomorphic systems can be crossed e.g. when thresholds of water supply
are exceeded, when changes in vegetation occur or when sediment stores which used to be
decoupled become coupled to the river systems e.g. by extreme events. Schumm (1979)
explains the non-linear behavior of fluvial systems using the term "complex response" which
means that external forcings can lead to spatially and temporally variable reactions.
Phillips (2003) speaks of Complex Nonlinear Dynamics (CND); the reasons for non-linearity
being (among others) thresholds, storage effects and self-reinforcing positive feedbacks.
Phillips (2006, 2011) later concludes that geomorphic systems are typically nonlinear, including dynamical instability, emergence and deterministic chaos, owing to their thresholddominated nature. This is particularly important when viewed in the context of climate
change, because there are multiple potential response trajectories and it cannot be safely
assumed that responses will be similar to those in the historical record. Intensified natural
hazards triggered by non-linear response of geomorphic systems may cause an asymmetry
between potential losses and potential gains which is a basic principle of sufficientarianism
(see c: Normative Theory).
An overview of thresholds in hydrological systems is provided by Zehe and Sivapalan (2009).
These authors suggest that threshold behavior generally involves a qualitative change of
either a single process (process threshold), the response of the system (response threshold),
or the functioning of the system (functional threshold). The transition from laminar to turbulent flow provides an example of threshold behavior at the process level, which occurs when
the ratio of inertial forces to viscous forces (represented by the Reynolds number) exceeds
an empirical threshold value. This transition, for instance, occurs in karst aquifers where water flows rapidly through solution conduits, and it is known that it may strongly influence the
hydrological response of the springs draining these aquifers (Reimann et al. 2011). Assessing if and under which conditions this leads to threshold behavior at the response level,
however, is not straightforward, as the spring response is governed by the interaction of several processes and flow components.
One example of a response threshold is provided by the Lurbach System (Austria) where a
sinking stream, which under low-flow conditions only resurges at one spring, additionally
supplies a second spring once a given threshold discharge is exceeded (Behrens et al.
1992). Interestingly, this threshold appears to have changed after a flood event in 2005, presumably because of the plugging of flow paths with sediments (Wagner et al. 2011, Mayaud
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et al., 2011). Flow duration curves and master recession curves suggest that the behavior of
this hydrological system has markedly changed since then and thus one may argue that a
sudden qualitative change in the hydrological functioning was triggered by this flood event
(functional threshold). This example demonstrates that thresholds in hydrological systems,
such as spring catchments, are closely connected to geomorphologic processes, such as
sediment transport, and climatic factors, such as the occurrence of extreme events.
A small change of a control parameter within one environmental system, such as those considered above, may be sufficient to trigger a qualitative change within complex humanenvironment systems even though it may not represent a threshold within the environmental
system itself. In the field of water resources, for instance, Yang et al. (2003) identified a
threshold of the quantity of the renewable freshwater resources of a country: the demand for
cereal import increases exponentially below this threshold, but cereal imports do not appear
to be controlled by the quantity of fresh water resources above this threshold. This threshold
is not necessarily related to threshold behavior within the hydrological system but emerges
only within the human-environment system.
At the same time, feedback mechanisms in closely coupled human-environment systems can
lead to threshold behavior within an individual environmental system that is not inherent in
the system itself. An example is provided by Stoll et al. (2011), who attributed drought periods in groundwater levels that were more pronounced than expected from calculated
groundwater recharge to a feedback between decreased recharge and increased groundwater extraction during dry periods. Hence, the response of environmental systems to climate
change can only be understood and predicted if the relevant feedback mechanisms within
the human-environment system are known.
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b)
Social sciences
Given this multi-faceted understanding of thresholds in natural sciences, it is crucial to develop further our shared understanding of various conceptions of thresholds and their significance in the social sciences. Some authors contend that societal limits can, in contrast to
immutable thresholds in natural, technological and economic systems of (re)production (e.g.
surpassing ecological thresholds may lead to loss of ecosystem functions), be overcome as
they are contingent upon “ethics” (i.e. values, preferences, and norms determine goals of
adaptation), knowledge (uncertainties), culture (cultural assets which are unique in time and
space), and attitudes towards risk (depending on habits, social status, age) (Adger et al.
2009). Hence, not only the relevance of “natural” thresholds for socio-economic systems will
be taken into consideration, but also thresholds determined by systemic properties of human
societies and normative conditions of human life.
In our understanding, we need to make advances in at least two directions to promote a
common understanding of thresholds. First, the achievements and difficulties in the various
approaches of social science (transition theory and economics) need discussion and comparison in a common framework. Second, the complexity of thresholds in the context of socio-economic systems poses challenges. Thresholds often are closely related to other concepts which play a crucial role in socio-economic theories.
The search for different thresholds can be based on the vulnerability of different environmental, social and economic systems to climate change and the resilience of these systems towards climate change impacts. Vulnerability to climate change is a function of the exposure
of a system or an entity to a climate change risk, its susceptibility if exposed, and its ability to
adapt (Olmos 2001; Alwang et al. 2001; Eakin and Lures 2006). Vulnerability therefore has a
double structure: it has an external side, the exposure to outside factors, and an internal
side, the coping ability of the system or entity (Bohle 2001). Thus, vulnerability both evolves
over time and is strongly driven by internal factors of socio-economic systems. For societal
limits, the question is therefore primarily not one of where the thresholds are but how vulnerability can be decreased and adaptive capacity can be improved.
A concept related to vulnerability is that of resilience. This concept was originally used in
ecology to describe the ability of a system to restore equilibrium once it is disturbed (DeAn19 of 41
gelis, 1980; Pimm, 1984). More generally, and going beyond an understanding which very
much resembles the notion of stability as used in fields such as economics, resilience can
been described as the ability of a system to absorb disturbances and its ability to reorganize
itself in a phase of transition so that essential structures and functions can be sustained, or to
transform its structures while preserving essential functions and eventually learning to deal
with newly emerging functional challenges (Walker et al. 2004).
Thresholds (possibly including irreversibilities, indivisibilities, and complementarities) are a
specific challenge for economic modeling, not least due to the role of assumptions such as
continuity in the canonical economic models. Moreover, the possible conceptual role of
thresholds is rather diverse and complex: from natural thresholds which may be conceived
as properties of the external world conditioning socio-economic life to thresholds basically
related to the properties of human interaction and the logic of mediating socio-economic interdependences. Last but not least, some often-used tools of marginal economic analysis are
only suitable for analyzing “small” rather than “big” changes, and may be problematic in the
context of switches to a qualitatively different path or regime. Nevertheless, there are some
approaches where thresholds and tipping-points either play an important role or which may
accommodate threshold-related problems, insofar as the analysis does not hinge upon modeling environments exhibiting continuity.
A first example can be seen in the attempt to respond to a practical demand cropping up
when natural scientists find some (supposedly detrimental) threshold within an ecological
system. Economists may try to capture those thresholds in a simple fashion (e.g. by assuming that the marginal cost curves faced by individuals or the society become extremely steep
at the threshold-related quantity of some emission). Furthermore, economic threshold analysis may be useful in terms of specifying the economic dimensions of a threshold problem. On
that basis, economists typically develop the perspective of containment strategies and may
discuss robust, cost-effective instruments suitable to steer the system away from the threshold.
At a second level, a threshold is still perceived as conditioned by the properties of the natural
environment, but the systematic consequences are more complex. Rapid and qualitative
changes in the natural environment may trigger qualitative changes in the structure of the
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socio-economic game summarizing the strategic interaction problems of a society or organization: the new structure of strategic interactions and incentives in society may entail new
bad equilibria (bad not only in terms of directly adverse ecological consequences, but also in
terms of the under-provision or destruction of higher order public goods which are needed to
implement any form of policy response). Hence the impact of crossing a threshold on socioeconomic systems may trigger new kinds of uncertainties, as it will often be difficult to predict
the ability of societies to cope with such bad equilibria, e.g. by means of again changing the
game structure through appropriate collective action.
At a third level of socio-economic analysis, the thresholds/tipping-points are not determined
outside the socio-economic system, but are considered as originating within the context of
socio-economic systems. At this level, interaction between economic analysis and transition/innovation theory may be expected to be productive, as some of the mechanisms (e.g.
those triggered by network externalities and lock-in effects) play a role in both approaches.
Concepts related to this level capture technological properties, institutional mechanisms,
norm systems etc. in ways which shed light on transition behavior of the pertinent systems,
such as network-properties (network externalities), often accompanied by indivisibilities, and
by specific forms of irreversibility.
Systems where such properties play a role typically exhibit thresholds. Important macroconsequences are perhaps triggered by a small change (cf. Thomas Schelling 1978, Hobart
Peyton Young 1998, and Marc Granovetter 1973), while conscious changes with respect to
such systems may entail inframarginal choices (X. Yang and Ng 1995, Cheng and X. Yang
2004), as opposed to the marginal choices which are the daily bread of the economist. Put
another way, questions answered by marginal analysis (e.g.: Which is the right size of some
given network?) do not become irrelevant, but they sometimes may be superseded by the
question, Which is the right network?
In particular in the context of the analysis of possible paths of institutions or societies for
adopting more comprehensive “systemic” climate policy regimes (including elements of mitigation, adaptation and complementary changes regarding sectoral structures and processes
with strong network properties), due attention should be paid to thresholds and the investigation of the conditions eventually justifying certain inframarginal collective choices. For example, thresholds are a crucial element in analyzing the question whether and how business
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sectors and companies deal with challenges created by climate change and develop sustainable coping strategies. Here, internal thresholds describe the minimum level of organizational capacity to recognize, deal and cope with challenges, risks and opportunities of climate
change, while external thresholds restrict organizational options. Both types of thresholds are
in focus when dealing with sustainable strategies of companies in climate sensitive sectors to
cope with critical climate change risks.
On the societal level, one practically pertinent question can be summarized as follows: Under
which conditions does steering clear of inframarginal political choices (i.e. letting the system
evolve through its tipping points with spontaneous determination of different regime states)
expose future people to more severe risks (in terms of the criteria elaborated by normative
analysis) than a pro-active attitude towards inframarginal choices?
Summarized succinctly the systemic role of thresholds is not confined to the idea that social
sciences help to determine the instruments, which may be expected to steer the system
away from detrimental thresholds. Different kinds of socio-economic threshold come to the
fore, including policy perspectives which may be related to thresholds for the self-sustained
evolution of “climate-friendly” regimes exhibiting self-reinforcing feedbacks.
c) Normative theories
From the normative perspective of intergenerational sufficientarianism, critical thresholds of
environmental, social and economic systems are relevant when passing the threshold increases the likelihood or implies the certain infringement or violation of basic rights of persons. The threshold value in normative theory can be understood as defining basic levels of
well-being that both currently living and future people ought to be able to reach. The relevant
level of well-being can be specified in terms of basic rights whose protection and realization
is a minimal requirement of justice. In normative theory we therefore can employ thresholds
to define at least parts of our duties towards other people. According to the normative understanding of thresholds, qualitative change is a change in the nature of our practical reasons
or duties, with respect to a certain state of affairs. For example, our reasons for action are
different when others around us lack enough than when no one lacks enough. The normative-philosophical projects interpret the difference as a discontinuity in the rate of change of
the marginal weight of our reasons to benefit people once enough is secured. Here a change
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in the strength of our practical reasons can be interpreted as a change in the nature of these
reasons.
The normative-philosophical projects explore intergenerational sufficientarianism, which is a
conception of justice that attempts (amongst other things) to identify morally fundamental
thresholds. Sufficientarianism is founded on the claim that there is an asymmetry between
potential losses and potential gains with respect to goods needed to fulfill basic interests,
with potential losses weighing more heavily than potential gains. It claims that benefits of
people below the threshold have lexical (absolute) or very strong priority over benefits to
people above the threshold and that the protection and realization of the threshold is a matter
of fulfilling minimal requirements of justice (Meyer 2009a, who distinguishes several versions
of sufficientarianism according to the strength of priority given to the claims of people below
the threshold).
Falling below the threshold means the infringement or violation of basic rights of persons. We
have fundamental reasons – reasons that favor some actions or state of affairs that do not
derive their weight from other reasons – to prevent people from falling below the threshold
and to help people to reach the threshold. A general research question of the normativephilosophical projects is how to justify sufficientarian thresholds and how to evaluate their
normative weight when we take into account both the uncertainties of the consequences of
policy responses to climate change and the non-ideal circumstances under which such policies are being carried out.
We can distinguish four main research questions of these projects: First, what kind of rights
can be ascribed to future people from a sufficientarian perspective and, given well established scenarios of climate change and the impacts they are likely to have, how often and
how seriously will these rights be violated? As pointed out above the considerable uncertainties with respect to the environmental and socio-economic effects of anthropogenic climate
change raises serious problems for a normative interpretation of the relevant data.
Second, how best to understand the moral significance of risk imposition, and especially the
imposition of risks of rights violations? Rights-based intergenerational sufficientarianism
seems to suggest a strong thesis on the relevance of imposing the risk of rights violations
when we assume that such imposition is harmful: We ought to give priority to the protection
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of basic rights not only when their violation is the certain outcome of some action or inaction
but also when what is at stake is imposing the risk or the mere possibility of violating such
rights. All policy decisions addressing climate change that impose risks of rights violations
are on this interpretation equally wrong. The interpretation cannot, therefore, be actionguiding in terms of choosing between those policies, and, assuming that most, if not all, climate policies imply such risks it becomes necessary to clarify the conditions under which the
prima facie no-risk principle can be defeated. We consider it to be an open and important
research question how the concept of a sufficientarian threshold can be used to distinguish
between acceptable and unacceptable, and permissible and impermissible risk imposition,
and how it can be utilized to define our duties towards future generations under uncertainty.
Third, how can one weigh the risks of rights violations of future people against the certain (or
highly likely) violation of rights and/or the setback of interests of currently living people? In
situations of uncertainty it may become extremely difficult to adequately apply cost-benefit
analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis and other decision making tools. Even if we had sufficient information about the probability of different outcomes, this does not automatically enable us to attribute monetary values to all benefits and burdens, including human life, physical
security, subsistence and health, since combining all damages in a monetary damage function might conceal ethical dilemmas and difficult value judgments (cf. Azar and Lindgren
2003). It seems at least questionable whether judgments about these impacts can be quantitatively calculated or are reducible to economic calculations (Shue 1999; Gardiner et al.
2010). Rather, it seems plausible to hold that neither the risk of a rights violation nor the actual prospective rights violation itself can be quantitatively expressed in (monetary) costs
(Broome 1992), and therefore needs a different scale in order to weigh one risk of a rights
violation against another.
Fourth, and related directly to the fact that other projects within the proposed DK do not investigate philosophically fundamental thresholds, we address the question of the normative
relevance of passing non-fundamental thresholds. Here we mention only three hypotheses:
First, if the substantive contents of the fundamental threshold reflect the conditions of life of
people, including, e.g. their economic conditions, passing a philosophically non-fundamental
economic threshold may lead to a different understanding of the substantive contents of the
fundamental threshold.
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For example, what is required for people to have a decent or a flourishing life will depend on
their conditions of life and, thus, a change of these conditions (which, historically speaking,
has often occurred) will bring about a change in the relevant substantive threshold. Second,
if passing non-fundamental thresholds will change the amount of goods or resources that can
be distributed within society, passing non-fundamental thresholds may lead to a change of
prospects to bring people up to the fundamental threshold and thus will change agents’ fundamental reasons for action. Third, if the threshold value includes a relative component, e.g.
in the sense that it requires a certain type of political relations to obtain between people, and
if passing a non-fundamental threshold brings about a change of the economic situation that
leads to a change in the relative political power of people, then passing this philosophically
non-fundamental threshold may affect our identification of which people we think are above
and below the philosophically fundamental threshold.
Based on these diverse understandings of thresholds it is crucial to develop further our
shared understanding of thresholds within the DK, deepening and sharpening the understanding that has been achieved through communication between faculty members antedating and motivating this proposal for an interdisciplinary DK. Likewise, by providing an interdisciplinary environment the DK will enable researchers to critically analyze and improve
conceptions of vulnerability and resilience as conceptualized in their own disciplines, and
also to find common elements and a shared ground for interdisciplinary research. Based on
the joint interdisciplinary development of these concepts of vulnerability and resilience we will
be able to define criteria for the identification of critical thresholds. Taken together the approach the DK adopts will allow evaluating where certain systems are threatened in their
existence, and where they might be able to adapt.
3. What are scientifically sound, technologically and institutionally feasible, economically efficient, and ethically defensible and sustainable strategies to cope with climate
change, particularly taking into account the problems of implementing them in an environment characterized by uncertainties and thresholds?
An environment characterized by uncertainties and thresholds of different systems sets a
specific agenda for developing coping strategies. A coping strategy describes a long term
plan chosen to bring about a desired future, i.e. to achieve one or more long-term or overall
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goals, with the means that are currently available. Thus, in our case a coping strategy is
about coping with climate change, entailing both adaptation to and mitigation of climate
change. Due to conditions of uncertainty, coping strategies do not consist of a set of finally
fixed measures; they rather provide orientation for "a pattern in a stream of decisions"
(Mintzberg 1978) in order to cope with the emerging challenges of climate change. In an environment characterized by uncertainties and thresholds, strategies for coping with climate
change (including socio-economic mechanisms, institutions, and implementation policies)
need to be reconsidered in terms of their adequacy and effectiveness.
The DK will first address the question of what needs and ought to be done so that critical
thresholds are not reached. In answering this question, the DK does not follow the classical
adaptation/mitigation divides but rather acknowledges that mitigation of greenhouse gases
and adaptation to climate change are both needed for managing the risks posed by climate
change; while a higher level of global mitigation increases the range in which humanenvironment systems can cope with climate change, adaptation may decrease the residual
risks (or increase, in case of mal-adaptation). Moreover, mitigation and adaptation strategies
share many properties as they can be generic (i.e. non specific for climate risks; usually easy
to undertake, generally inexpensive options with a number of co-benefits) or specific (i.e.
needing e.g. investments in research and development) (Jones et al. 2007).
In the DK, options for both mitigative and adaptive strategies will be thus explored at different
spatial levels (from local to national to global), different temporal scales (from short to medium to long term; from intra- to intergenerational), and for different actors (from individual
households and firms to social groups to national and supra-national institutions). Moreover,
the DK promises added value for looking at necessary adaptation and mitigation strategies
from an interdisciplinary perspective.
In addition to identifying coping strategies, the DK will investigate which economic, technological, institutional and societal transformations are required for implementation of mitigation
and adaptation and how these transformations can be facilitated. A key concept here is coping ability, i.e. the ability to cope with climate change, entailing both adaptation to and mitigation of climate change. Coping ability is understood in this DK as going beyond capacity,
where adaptive and mitigative capacities are commonly defined as sets of technological and
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policy options, financial resources, human and social capital, and the structure of critical institutions and decision making (Yohe 2001; Yohe and Tol 2002; Winkler et al. 2007).
While capacity is a necessary prerequisite of coping actions, it is not sufficient because capacity may remain latent (Burch and Robinson 2007). Therefore, ability is here understood
as entailing both capacity and additional factors such as leadership, adequate organizational
and governance structures, availability of adequate information at relevant scales, and individual incentive structures. All these additional factors may constitute barriers to mitigation
and adaptation measures, which need to be overcome or transformed into enablers of action
(Burch 2010).
While adaptive capacity has been discussed in the impact and adaptation literature for quite
some time, mitigative capacity has received much less attention (Yohe 2001). However, both
concepts need to be addressed jointly to cope with the risks associated with climate change,
due to the positive and negative relationships among mitigation and adaptation and the different temporal and spatial scales on which they unfold their effectiveness (Klein et al. 2007;
Jones et al. 2007). Moreover, a high level of commitment to mitigation is found for countries
with high levels of adaptive capacity (Tubi et al. 2012). Thus, in addition to identifying coping
barriers for adaptation and mitigation separately we will discuss how these different types of
coping ability may substitute or complement each other.
Building up adaptive capacity may be hindered by different barriers, at different stages of the
decision making process (understanding, planning, and managing). Among these barriers,
some constitute thresholds, such as thresholds of concern over potential negative consequences (e.g. due to lack of information) or thresholds of response need and feasibility (e.g.
due to resource constraints or lack of leadership) (Moser and Ekstrom 2010). In this DK, we
will identify these barriers and discuss options for transformations, such as changing incentive structures or supporting technological development, which may induce small and large
changes in socio-economic and natural systems taking account of other, but equally important, non-climatic factors (demographics etc.).
In order to develop a sufficient understanding of coping strategies as well as to analyze options to overcome barriers to mitigative and adaptive action, we will conduct empirical research and modeling based on theories of economics, transition and innovation theory, management science, behavioral and normative theory. For this, it is essential to know not only
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what options there are, but also how feasible they are and what cost and benefits they will
come with. Asking these questions will not only lead to a better understanding of these strategies but also result in the development of interdisciplinary modeling approaches. Such an
integrated approach can enable a better understanding of co-benefits and trade-offs across
different strategies and objectives over different scales in space and time, and the relevant
value decisions that underlie all of this.
To address the question of what needs and ought to be done so that critical thresholds are
not reached, economists face the challenge of developing approaches to manage or reduce
climate risks, especially those with eventually disastrous outcomes which may lie on the fat
tails of probability distributions (Weitzman 2009). This requires, first, better knowledge of the
“true” probability distributions, which is closely related to the research on critical thresholds in
human-environment systems (see research question 2 above). Second, to cope with such
circumstances, the conventional approach of net benefit maximization has been questioned
and some authors suggest the use of a precautionary approach which focuses on insuring
against such risks (Ackerman et al. 2009), such as the tolerable window approach (e.g. Bahn
et al. 2006) or the safe minimum standard (Ciriacy-Wantrup 1969). Third, coping can be enhanced by diversification, as this increases the scope of response options and actors (Turner
et al. 2003).
Contributions from economics are moreover needed to understand how different coping
strategies (including mitigation and adaptation measures as well as broader institutional developments) may interact in a setting of polycentric governance. One main challenge here is
the global public good nature of mitigation actions, which triggers free rider behavior and may
give rise to carbon leakage (i.e. emission reductions achieved domestically may be counterbalanced partially by emission increases abroad); another is the lack of global institutions
that can address non-compliance and opt-outs. Hence economists have discussed several
measures to reduce this ineffectiveness, e.g. by applying carbon tariffs at the outer border of
complying entities, or policies to foster the transition to low carbon technologies (Böhringer et
al 2012).
There is a strong interest in robust, cost-effective policies which can both be effectively implemented at a sub-global level and also reliably contribute to moving away from “dangerous”
thresholds. This also requires an in-depth analysis of how mitigation and adaptation can be
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addressed jointly, given the fact that a single region or nation cannot meet its demand for
mitigation within its boundaries (Jones et al. 2007), and how different social groups as well
as economic sectors may be affected by the imposed policies due to differing levels of capacity (Turner et al. 2003). On the other hand, some of those policies (especially including
those which do not exclusively rely on imposing hard constraints and price signals; cf. Sturn’s
Showcase 2 are likely to exhibit “positive” threshold effects, depending on network externalities and the evolution of shared mental models.
Moreover, interaction between economics and normative theory will be useful for discussing
the implications of far-reaching interdependences of the following kind: economic analysis
shows that policies with no prima facie implications regarding the climate may be of first order importance in that they trigger different paths of development. For instance, educationrelated policies (cf. e.g. Llavador et al. 2010) may enhance the probability of the development of resource-saving technologies and life styles. Other examples are found for energy
and transport policy, which may either enhance or reduce the surpassing of critical thresholds. Thus, such policies may not only help to steer societies away from critical thresholds,
but may also have further normatively relevant implications as compared to other paths, such
as reducing vulnerability or, more generally, on opportunities and their distribution. At those
levels of analysis, the interaction between economics, transition/innovation theory (see below) and normative theory is expected to be particularly intensive.
Interaction between economics and philosophy will moreover be necessary to spell out how
two core concepts may be integrated in a common evaluative framework: economic efficiency (which is based on the actual preferences of individuals) and concepts of ethical evaluation based on rights, standards of sufficiency and other kinds of non-utility information, the
use of which may be especially compelling in environments exhibiting critical threshold behavior.
While it seems almost obvious that the overall integration of those concepts cannot safely
rely on the traditionally employed notion of a trade-off between efficiency and justice, tradeoffs will keep playing a role at certain levels of analysis and policy – which need to be spelled
out for the case of both mitigation and adaptation (cf. showcase 2 of Bednar-Friedl).
Applying the multi-level perspective (MLP) of transitions advocated by Geels (2002, 2010),
we can identify three levels at which policy measures can be implemented: the socio29 of 41
technical “landscape” level, the socio-technical regime level, and the niche-innovation level.
The socio-technical regime level, which forms the meso level in the MLP, represents “semicoherent sets of rules carried by different social groups” (Geels 2002, 1260), or in other
words “configurations of science, technology, organizational routines, practices, norms and
values, labeled for their core technology or mode of organization” (Kemp et al. 2001, 273).
Socio-technical regimes account for stability, i.e. usually only incremental innovations occur
along the technological S-curves.
The socio-technical landscape level represents the external environment, which usually
changes slowly and influences niches and regime dynamics. It includes firstly the natural
environment with its potential climatic, hydrological and geomorphological thresholds (e.g.
shortage or excess of water, natural hazards), and secondly a set of socio-technical long
term trends, such as crude oil prices, economic growth, cultural and social normative values,
migration etc. Thus, the socio-technical landscape understood as an external context of interaction of actors and organizations, is a structure that is both slow and difficult to change.
In addition to the rather objectively measurable changes within the natural environment and
the resulting pressure on human systems, the ways in which the relevant agents perceive
these changes is also relevant for the transition of human-environment systems. Hence, research on critical thresholds in human-environment systems (see research question 2 above)
relies on information not only about the effects of environmental change on human systems
but also about the perception of these changes.
Besides these critical thresholds, technical standards, such as BAT (best available technology), as well as legal and ethical standards are also boundaries of human behavior. Within
these boundaries, policy makers try to steer the system away from critical thresholds using
basically three strategies (Kemp et al. 2001): The first strategy is to provide incentives for
climate change mitigation and adaption measures and allow market forces to determine
choices within the new incentive structure. Generally negative externalities are taxed (e.g.
EU ETS), and positive externalities are rewarded. The second strategy is to directly develop
new socio-technical systems and/or to directly intervene in order to end socio-technical regimes (e.g. a political decision against the application of a certain technology or substance).
The third strategy is to create technological niches that allow for innovation in promising new
technologies (“strategic niche management”).
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Within these niches, new technologies get a change to develop and grow. Policymakers engage to keep the innovation process going into the right direction, e.g. via temporary subsidies of emerging promising technologies. For example, the diffusion of renewable energy
generation needs feed-in tariffs in the early diffusion stage. As soon as new technologies
become competitive, they will further penetrate markets (without subsidies), e.g. as soon as
wind energy or photovoltaic electricity reach grid parity the diffusion of the technology will
boost (supply-side economies of scale). Additionally, at demand side, social and/or technical
network effects might occur.
Once a certain critical mass is reached, the (perceived) value of the technology is greater
than the price and a snowball effect in the diffusion of the technology occurs. Then, the technology builds a new dominant socio-technological regime and it becomes very difficult for
competitors to catch up, which in turn leads to path dependencies and creates the possibility
of lock-in effects in the new socio-technological regimes. The socio-technological niche level
forms the locus where innovations emerge. Key actors at niche level are frontrunners (innovative thinkers, practitioners, social entrepreneurs), together forming a “transition arena”
(Frantzeskaki and Loorbach 2012).
However, these frontrunners are always embedded in certain social or organizational settings. Thus, for getting a better picture of how innovations take place at niche level, there is a
necessity of enhancing the classical understanding of organizational strategies and of including corporate sustainability aspects. Companies need to develop corporate strategies which
are economically feasible, ethically defensible, and sustainably reduce corporate contributions to negative effects of climate change and improve their own adaptability when it comes
to dealing with the consequences of climate change. Thus, the development of corporate
strategies relies on knowledge about potential effects of climate change including the relevant feedback mechanisms and thresholds within human-environment systems (see research question 2 above).
Besides companies, regional entities like municipalities, networks, grass-root initiatives,
NGOs, etc. can develop (and have developed) their own coping strategies and thus contribute to broader societal transformation processes. Potential changes in the availability of water resources, for example, may pose challenges for various types of organizations such as
municipalities (drinking water supply), companies (e.g. process water, cooling water, hydropower), or agricultural holdings (irrigation). Thus, it will be necessary to go beyond organiza31 of 41
tional borders and understand the interaction of a variety of different actors that leads to
changes in the whole socio-technical configuration of systems, including the spatial, temporal, and institutional structures, production and consumption patterns, financial rules, regulations and policies, infrastructure, culture and symbolic meaning, perceived threats and
scope of action, among other aspects.
The normative projects are meant to contribute to the assessment of coping strategies in
terms of their overall ethical defensibility. The DK will provide an important context to ask
which factors are normatively relevant for the evaluation of decisions concerning actions and
policies and how these factors can contribute to determining the least unjust option available
to us. From a normative perspective this implies comparing policy options by weighing the
differing risks of rights violations of future people against the differing certain (or highly likely)
set-backs of interests and violations of rights of currently living people. Often the interests of
both currently living and future people will be affected (e.g. by choosing a mix of mitigation
and adaptation measures) and thus identifying the least unjust option requires weighing the
set-backs of interests and violations of rights of both against each other.
In the normative-philosophical projects the third key research question as stated is understood in terms of applying the general normative account of the relevance of the imposition of
risks of rights violations to important policy dimensions of responding to climate change and
what can be learned from this application for the general account. For example, the normative understanding that the philosophical projects will develop could be applied to climate
engineering (CE) – proposals for the planetary-scale engineering of the climate aimed at
counteracting the undesired side effects (global warming) of other human activities (emitting
GHG emissions). The normative evaluation of CE is strongly influenced by the perception of
risk and uncertainty, and the potential risks vary enormously among different proposals, for
example in the estimates of the impacts, costs, effectiveness, and timeliness of each. These
risks of prominent measures CE (e.g. stratospheric solar radiation management) would have
to be identified and analyzed in detail with respect to their normative relevance and how they
might be combined with broader strategies of adaptation and mitigation.
At first sight a risk-averse interpretation of intergenerational sufficientarianism seems to be a
plausible approach for the evaluation of the imposition of risks of harms and rights violations
32 of 41
of CE policies due to the fact that the use of such policies is likely to cause consequences
that will violate the basic rights of many people. However, such policies also seem to raise
many important questions that are challenging for such a position. For example: a) How can
we make trade-offs between the risks and possible benefits while recognizing the underlying
uncertainties? b) Can we from a normative viewpoint compare the risks of CE policies with
the risks of unmitigated severe climate change in such a situation of uncertainty?
These questions already indicate how closely key research question 3 is connected to the
other research questions of the project. The analysis of these and further questions as they
arise in the context of particular policy proposals will provide grounds for improving the general account of a risk-averse sufficientarianism and may indicate the need for the further development of the general normative interpretation of the imposition of risks of rights violations
in the context of climate change.
33 of 41
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