My Climate Risk Interdisciplinary Learning Group

11 March 2024; 13:00-14:00 UK time

Presenter: Julia Mindlin

Biography

Julia Mindlin is a Geophysicist from Argentina. She is about to obtain her PhD degree in Atmospheric and Ocean Sciences from University of Buenos Aires and will start working as a postdoc in the Climate Causality group at the University of Leipzig in April. Her doctoral research focused was focused on developing storylines of Southern Hemisphere circulation change using global climate models, statistical methods and physical understanding of climate dynamics. She’s part of the My Climate Risk community and contributes to the Argentinian Regional Hub, is part of the YESS Community Executive Committee and co-chair of the Fresh Eyes for CMIP Steering Group.

Paper to be presented

Title:  The rocky path from policy-relevant science to policy implementation—a case study from the South American Chaco, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 19, 57-66 

Author:  Daniel M Cáceres, Felicitas Silvetti, Sandra Díaz (2016)

Link to paper:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2015.12.003

Link to :  My Climate Risk Regional Hub CONICET Argentina

Session Highlights:

March saw the MCRILG explore the relationship between scientific researchers in climate change associated disciplines and decision makers in the political world. Dr Julia Mindlin joined us from the University of Buenos Aires to present Cáceres et al’s paper “The rocky path from policy-relevant science to policy implementation – a case study from the South American Chaco”. This was chosen based not just on its very relevant message for MCR about taking a bottom-up approach to climate action, but also due to the inspiring interdisciplinary group who wrote the paper, comprising Argentinian experts on rural technology and ecology, history and philosophy, plant diversity and ecosystems. By choosing a paper based on research in the global south, Dr Mindlin also aimed to avoid any Eurocentric bias and speak to her own personal perspective of My Climate Risk.

 This paper seeks to find the reason why research that appears to satisfy all the right criteria for inclusion in environmental policy can still go unheeded.  The Information Deficit Model tells us that for research to be embraced by the wider community it must be solving their problems, in an interdisciplinary context, designed and produced with the end-users and communicated in a readily understandable fashion.  However, even with all of these boxes ticked, under the Power Dynamic Model, if the key conclusions do not resonate with the prevailing power trajectories, then research may still fail to be included in environmental policy decisions. The dominant actors and narratives make up the policy spaces and can constrain take-up of research, as scientific knowledge is just considered as a small part of the wider ranging decision-making process.

In the Chaco region, home to the second largest rainforest after the Amazon, a commission was formed to apply a national law in the local context.  However, it was soon obvious that the scientists in the pro-environment network of the commission, were not only at odds with the agronomists, lawyers and economists in the pro-agribusiness network, but were also overshadowed in terms of political influence. Unfortunately, in this case the two sides produced parallel bills for parliament, with the one backed by the political parties being adopted, despite it contradicting academic thinking and scientific evidence. This reflected the greater importance given to the short-term target of solving the economic crisis in the region, above the long-term goal of protecting ecosystems that would provide benefits in the future, not least in reducing the impact of extreme weather events. However, the paper’s authors were not content to finish on this negative note, but instead used it to create a framework for researchers in future to try to avoid similar pitfalls.  The four pillars to making a difference in policy implementation were given as the need to align with the interests of the politically strong, to create compelling stories that are relatable, to bring information to a wide range of social actors through a variety of media and to ensure work is presented in a timely way to exploit windows of opportunity for change.

To start our discussion, it was suggested that this approach could make scientists believe that they have to align with existent political structures, which could limit the objectivity of their research. However, Julia pointed out that working with communities to empower them, could also help to change the dominant paradigm, so that projects do not need to be based on the belief set of those currently in power. Members of the group were enthusiastic about the need to form an alliance between physical and social science, so that the framework suggested here could help scientists to be less naïve and more able to interpret power structures.  It was mentioned that of the four pillars given in the paper, the need to align with prevailing ideas seemed to dominate all others. Keeping track of such trends can be time consuming, particularly for physical scientists, so this is where an alliance with political scientists could provide a real advantage. Often what policy makers actually require is not nearly as detailed as scientists expect and being guided by the needs of the decision makers is really key.

It was mooted that scientists are still not producing scientific output that is digestible for policy makers with a perpetual disconnect between scientific research and economic methodology. Part of this was expressed as “the need to produce succinct, persuasive, policy notes with engaging, personal stories that illustrate the issues and opportunities for positive change”. Dr Mindlin suggested that working with economists to translate research into economic terms could be a useful way to bridge the language gap. Publicity through national newspapers can also help to provide exposure for important work, as often those in power are more likely to access news stories than academic research, a truth, which although not entirely palatable, is often essential to acknowledge.

Climate scientists don’t have to be good at working through the power dynamics, if they work with social and political scientists. It was pointed out that such an approach would also help to prevent the stereotype of those being pro-environment always being anti-economy. However, it was agreed that we should avoid monetising ecosystem services but could perhaps start to put a price on damaging biodiversity by working with the insurance industry. Members of the group felt that perhaps developing a formal science-policy framework might be a useful tactic.  The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries was mentioned as a group which is very interested in climate risk, so perhaps they could be used as a stepping stone to moving academic research into the broader policy realm. (If anyone is interested pursuing this link, then please contact the Walker Institute and we will pass on further details).

Dr Mindlin finished the session by reiterating the need for inter or even transdisciplinarity in addressing climate research, so that scientists can remain objective in their work, but still make use of the expertise of political scientists and economists to ensure that research reaches the people that need to hear about it, thus making it less of an academic exercise and more a step towards coping better with the challenges of climate change.