Envisioning ARPA‐C: A Transdisciplinary Institution for Radical Climate Research and Intervention

Abstract

President Joe Biden's administration is poised to make a significant investment in climate research, including the creation of ARPA‐C (Advanced Research Projects Agency–Climate). This commentary serves to promote discourse on ARPA‐C and the future of government‐led climate research. Here, we propose a revolutionary leap to the ARPA model that incorporates a focus on culture and equity in a unique institutional structure anchored by transdisciplinarity. With ARPA‐C, we argue for a radical rethinking of climate interventions that reconciles and evolves the relationship between social, technical, and environmental systems, by finding integrated pathways to improvement via a high‐risk, creative, and transformative climate action agenda. Without research that can address the network of causal relationships across multiple scales, systems, and nations, programmatic models for climate research and implementation are unlikely to succeed.

Challenging Carbon Lock-In: Insights From U.S. Governmental Energy Research and Development Expenditures With Advocacy Recommendations for the Energy Research Community

“…For fiscal year 2022 as proposed by the House of Representatives, ARPA-E's funding has increased to $600 million, but the proposed ARPA-C still has no resources, though the DOE requested it receive $200 million (Sargent, 2021). While ARPA-E's funding has increased, it is not a good sign that ARPA-C, which would focus on a transdisciplinary, public-private partnership approach to climate research has not received funding (Badia et al, 2021). While the Biden administration supports the creation of the novel ARPA-C, the current outlook in Congress is dim (Badia et al, 2021).…”

“…While ARPA-E's funding has increased, it is not a good sign that ARPA-C, which would focus on a transdisciplinary, public-private partnership approach to climate research has not received funding (Badia et al, 2021). While the Biden administration supports the creation of the novel ARPA-C, the current outlook in Congress is dim (Badia et al, 2021). From another perspective, the budget for fiscal year 2021 of the U.S. Department of Defense's (DOD)-the home of DARPA, upon which ARPA-E was modeled-was a staggering $703.7 billion, with an expected increase to $715 billion for fiscal year 2022 (Bonvillian, 2018;Department of Defense, 2021).…”

“…Utilizing personal, professional, and institutional methods, researchers can become more engaged in science policy and advocate for increased renewable energy research and development funding to challenge the effects of carbon lockin (Seto et al, 2016). Issue advocacy in this realm has been done by Badia et al (2021) to garner support for the previously discussed Advanced Research Projects Agency-Climate (ARPA-C), through working with former Colorado Governor Bill Ritter to propose the creation of the new agency to the Biden campaign (Badia et al, 2021). In April of 2021, President Biden issued the proposed budget that had a combined $1 billion in resources toward ARPA-E and ARPA-C (Badia et al, 2021).…”

“…Issue advocacy in this realm has been done by Badia et al (2021) to garner support for the previously discussed Advanced Research Projects Agency-Climate (ARPA-C), through working with former Colorado Governor Bill Ritter to propose the creation of the new agency to the Biden campaign (Badia et al, 2021). In April of 2021, President Biden issued the proposed budget that had a combined $1 billion in resources toward ARPA-E and ARPA-C (Badia et al, 2021). However, this has not been reflected in the House of Representative's budget for fiscal year 2021 as ARPA-C was allocated $0 (Sargent, 2021).…”