Decision Making & Governance
Theme leader:
Tim Richardson, Professor, Aalborg University
Theme description:
Global climate change brings changes to regional and local weather patterns. The IPCC climate models and their regional and national versions predict rising temperatures, local weather extremes, and changes in precipitation patterns with consequences for food security and sea level rise. The expected changes and the anticipated effects call for timely decision-making and capable institutions that lead society towards a sustainable future through pro-active and adaptive measures. The uncertainties facing decision-makers are vast. Such uncertainties need to be considered explicitly and appropriate strategies need to be chosen in light of them. Governance institutions therefore should stimulate explicit recognition of uncertainties, and promote the adaptive capacity of society and allow society to modify its institutions at a rate commensurate with the rate of environmental change.
Issues for discussion:
- What strategies are appropriate for what type of uncertainties? When to choose for robustness, when for adaptation, when for resilience? – robustness1 aims at preventing risk and reducing vulnerability by overdimensioning; adaptation aims at preventing risk and reducing vulnerability, while capitalizing on the opportunities provided by the potential impacts of climate change, whereas resilience is considered an intrinsic property of a social-ecologic system enabling it to recover autonomously from a disruption.
- How do requirements of uncertainty awareness, robustness, adaptation and resilience influence the design of governance and decision-making systems?
- Participation and institutionalization - Institutions reflect formal governmental processes as well as formal and informal social patterns of engagement. How can we design institutions that promote the adaptive capacity of society and are themselves adaptive?
- Translating impact assessment to strategy – Impact assessment is institutionalized in many countries both at policy, programme and project level. Is that sufficient for effective change management and a transition to a sustainable future? How should IA be modified or expanded in order to contribute to adaptive decision-making processes and structures?
Participation requirements:
We invite contributions providing theoretical insights as well as practical experience with respect to a transition to adaptive governance systems. Potential presenters are invited to submit a 600 words abstract.