Pathways to a Sustainable Earth: Unlocking Solutions through Transformational Science
At COP28, members of the Frontiers Planet Prize community participated in the panel session “Pathways to a Sustainable Earth: Unlocking Solutions through Transformational Science”, that examined the key obstacles and challenges that must be addressed to fully harness the potential of transformational science as the basis for policy discourse. The panel was moderated by Wendy Broadgate, Global Hub Director of Future Earth and an advisory board member of the Frontiers Planet Prize.
One of the speakers at the panel was Dr Paul Behrens, an International Champion of the 1st edition of the Frontiers Planet Prize. Dr Behrens is an expert on food systems and their role in the overall transition that is required towards a sustainable earth. Below you can find a summary of his thoughts on how to make the transition phase as smooth and efficient as possible, together with the insights from the invited panel members.
Paul Behrens
Associate professor, Leiden University;
Frontiers Planet Prize international champion 2023
The Netherlands
“The good thing is that we know pretty much almost all the technical and economic ways to achieve these transitions. Unfortunately, we're much hazier on the social barriers to implementing those changes”
In addition to fully electrifying our energy system, the food system alone is enough to drive society beyond the 1.5- or even 2-degree mark, which is why a great food transformation is top of mind for many food system researchers. Paul Behrens laid out the changes necessary to reduce emissions in this area, namely the widespread adoption of plant-based diets, reduction in food waste, and improvements in food production. He continued to explain that knowledge required for us to lead healthier, happier lives on a cleaner, healthier planet already largely exists. The challenge, and what’s needed to make these paradigm shifts a reality, is social change. This is an area that is more difficult to analyze as we don’t have good modelling understandings of leverages for tipping points.
We know that committed minorities can shift the majority to new forms, but we don’t know what this might look like when it comes to food or other systems. Additionally, more information is needed about how climate impacts, like extreme weather events and increasing food insecurity, will feedback into society in terms of politics and mitigation and adaptation efforts. While narratives can be shared about what life will be like on the other side of these transition phases, as people navigate the potentially uncomfortable middle, their attitudes and willingness to commit to change may shift, either on the individual level or the larger social and political levels. Behrens concluded that we want to ease the transition phase for people and have already seen that many of the mitigation and adaptation options increase resilience to climatic change and science has been instrumental in identifying these. More collaboration between various scientific disciplines, including the social sciences, and policy can help provide clarity in areas that are lacking and make sure the right messages are being delivered to policymakers and the public.
Frederick Fenter
Chief Executive Editor, Frontiers
“It's extremely important that we work with this transformational science in a special way. First, it is our responsibility to make it open. It's the open dynamic that is going to allow us to take this work and get it into the research innovation cycle. Secondly, it must participate in policy. We hear all the time the urgency of the climate emergency, it compels us to prepare these insights in a way that's useful in policy. Thirdly, we must restore the public's faith and trust in science. All of these are important elements of the open science dynamic.”
Transformational science is new science with real potential. It has the capacity to shift paradigms and address the societal challenges that we face. Frederick Fenter reiterated a message shared in the previous panel on just how important it is to get this new science immediately into the collective scientific brain through the open science dynamic. The COVID-19 pandemic was the prototypical example of this with information being quickly and openly shared to save lives, something that publishers played a key role in facilitating by making all relevant articles open access. Fenter pushed for the same sense of urgency to be applied to the climate emergency.
Once this information is available, it then needs to be contextualized. Fenter saw an opportunity here for publishers like Frontiers to amplify the latest discoveries by providing policy editorials and incorporating the voices of leading scientists to put the scientific results into perspective, being sure to include summaries for the full demographic, even children, like the Frontiers for Young Minds initiative. This type of communication, in addition to bringing the community together and recognizing scientists for their valuable work through events like the Frontiers Forum and the Frontiers Planet Prize, can foster dialogue and trust in science so that we can solve the climate crisis.
Sandrine Dixson-Declève
Co-president, Club of Rome
“We will not transform if it's only about the science. With transformational science, we need transformational policy and transformational innovations, which will bring with them transformational systems governance. Within our scientific frameworks, if transformational science is going to enable us to transform, we have to think about all those elements going alongside. Narrative building and transformational partnerships have to go hand in hand within the transformational sciences. We also have to think of the systems breakdown we have across our over financialized economic system and take into consideration the social elements with inequality and poverty. All of those elements are going to enable us to transform but they have to go together.”
Our society mirrors the earth’s systems in the sense that both are intimately intertwined with other areas and a change in one area can have effects elsewhere. Just as we have transformational science that examines all these different intersections, we need governance systems that take a holistic approach to transformation. Recent events have shown us what happens when systems work with or against each other. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw what was possible when working together to adapt our economic, financial, and scientific models to quickly achieve a common goal. In contrast, energy poverty in Europe showed what can happen without this coordination. More progress could have been made in less time had decisions not been made in silos, often disregarding scientific models, social tipping points, and other potential impacts on people. Sandrine Dixson-Declève used this example to point out how today's science is not injected into the decision-making process that is currently taking place, including COP28.
This type of disconnect serves as a significant barrier to transformation. We need to break down existing silos, reintroduce science, and join up thinking to achieve this holistic approach. Dixson-Declève acknowledged the complexity of this, but emphasized transformation is possible. Bringing in social sciences to complement the hard sciences will help better address the pain points and overcome many of the barriers she and other panelists mentioned in terms of the translation and implementation of science into policy with respect for the larger picture.
Joeri Rogelj
Director of Research, Grantham Institute
Professor of climate science and policy,
Imperial College London
“It's great to see the body of knowledge that we have accumulated. We need to work on translating that into actionable insights that can be taken up by policymakers. We also need to think about messengers, who take that knowledge and bring it to the policy table. Those messengers must be trusted but are not necessarily scientists or are scientists with a very specific skill in communication. That kind of group and collaboration can pull the science more into the center of the debate on climate change and climate solutions.”
Science can tell us the necessity of making certain systems changes to address climate challenges. This information is important as we want to be sure the challenging, but positive transitions are what we want to pursue or are what must be done before asking people around the world to undergo these transitions. Joeri Rogelj identified this as one of the underlying motivations for the recent Frontiers in Science article, “The Zero Emissions Commitment and climate stabilization,” that he co-authored. We have been concentrating on the net zero emissions goal without much consideration for what comes after. The article evaluated what we know about how the climate will behave once we reach net zero, which presented a strong likelihood of a continued warming after net zero to create a stabilizing, but not yet stable, climate. Knowing this, Rogelj explained how the net zero emissions milestone may be just that, a milestone in our climate journey that we need to reach before we begin to reverse our environmental impact in a sustainable way.
This type of new information is what needs to be translated and disseminated to policymakers and other stakeholders so we can continue to adjust our path forward. It is an area that provides a unique opportunity for social and physical scientists to work together. Rogelj recommended developing methods and ways to extract evidence-based, actionable insights from transformational science and identifying expert communicators to deliver these insights in ways that resonate and motivate the target audiences, such as policymakers.
Lars Peter Riishøjgaard
Director, Global Greenhouse Gas Watch,
World Meteorological Organization
“We talk about the climate emergency, but it is not being experienced and treated as an emergency in quite the same way [as COVID].”
Global warming is already producing dire consequences. Climate events are becoming more frequent and intense, indicating that the situation is escalating faster than anticipated. Global systems, like food and water systems, are under increasing stress and can cause a ripple effect in other areas and in ways we may not be able to foresee. And as a society we have only six years to course correct to hold the 1.5-degree mark, fulfill the Paris Agreement, and avoid the negative effects that come with every additional increment of warming. Scientists have sounded the metaphorical alarm, even changing the language used, referring to the situation as a “climate crisis” or “climate emergency.” Still, Lars Peter Riishøjgaard does not believe our reaction to all this is urgent enough. He compared the response to the climate crisis with that of the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw global mitigation measures swiftly implemented, to underline the lack of action when it comes to global warming. He stressed that the climate emergency must be approached as a scientific problem and can only be solved by scientists and policymakers working together on this to apply science-based solutions as the highest priority, something COVID-19 demonstrated as being possible.
To address the climate crisis effectively, Riishøjgaard proposed several measures, with the most important one being the adoption of fully open science. Though he recognized that open science may not necessarily be received with open arms by all at first. Other steps include building trust in science, something open science can aid in, and improving the communication of this science. Both of which can be done by including scientists in all levels of discussion and translating findings into clear, consistent messages that do not oversimplify or downplay the issue, while highlighting the key points that can guide policymaking.
Clea Kaske-Kuck
Director, Partnerships and Stakeholder Engagement,
World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
“When we identify these ideas, frameworks, solutions, let's talk more to the scientific community about what we are doing to get some of the latest insight, but possibly also use our work and share it.”
Climate action is an ongoing process that requires strong, long-lasting collaboration. Clea Kaske-Kuck shared how more structured collaboration can remove barriers and close the gap between innovation and implementation. To do this, it is important to recognize, incentivize, and play to the strengths of each contributor, such as science and business. Science builds knowledge about the world, with transformational earth systems science able to better comprehend the complexity of the planet and its boundaries. It should be used to guide the best ways forward. Businesses are strong, agile innovators, able to rapidly develop and implement new strategies, processes, and solutions. They bring a how-to approach that can accelerate action in line with the latest information provided by the scientific community. Kaske-Kuck referenced the Partnership for Carbon Transparency (PACT), which seeks to accelerate decarbonization, as an example of how businesses can leverage these strengths for the benefit of the planet.
The PACT community has developed global frameworks for the methodological and technological basis emissions data exchange, creating more alignment and making the operating space easier to navigate. They’ve also compiled a toolbox of case studies and practical examples of how companies around the world start to take climate action, representative of diverse geographies, industries, and sizes, as well as roadmaps to help businesses prepare for what’s to come based on science. Kaske-Kuck encouraged more widespread development of such resources to drive change and take advantage of the interest there from stakeholders who may not otherwise know where to begin their climate journeys. She also acknowledged that there is potential for even greater collaboration between science and business, as well as other stakeholders like government, to align at all levels and continue to combine their strengths.
