Risk? Crisis? Emergency? Implications of the new climate emergency framing for governance and policy

Abstract

The term "climate emergency" represents a new phase in climate change framing that many hope will invigorate more climate action. Yet there has been relatively little discussion of how the new emergency framing might shape broader governance and policy. In this advanced review, we critically review and synthesize existing literature on crisis and emergency to inform our understanding of how this new shift might affect governance and policy. Specifically, we explore the literature on crisis governance and policy to argue that there is no simple answer to whether the "climate emergency" framing will be supportive of climate governance and policy; rather, more work needs to be done to understand how different political actors respond according to their perceptions, interests and values. To assist this endeavor, we develop a typology of four policy pathways, ranging from "no emergency," to "no emergency, but recognize risk," "emergency as a threat" and "emergency as an opportunity." We highlight the need to consider the effects of multiple and overlapping emergency frames, using the example of the intersection of climate change and COVID-19. Finally, we suggest new interdisciplinary research directions for critically analyzing and refining this new phase of climate change framing.

Who is the climate‐induced trapped figure?

“…In the same way that the trapped figure triggers fear and worry, including for their “protection,” the language describing most climate change characteristics and scenarios foster alarm and anxiety (Ayeb‐Karlsson et al, 2018; Bettini, 2013; Hulme, 2019; McHugh et al, 2021). These are unhelpful and ill‐founded narratives.…”

“…We often come across articles referring to "climate refugees" and climate-induced "mass migration," 2 and for some reason, persistent scholars keep counting those "imaginary numbers" of climate migrants that "do not add up" (Gemenne, 2011;Kelman, 2019). Moreover, as some have argued, these alarmist narratives are not helped by recent claims of "climate emergency" and "mass extinction," which exacerbate public anxieties about climate change (Hulme, 2011(Hulme, , 2019McHugh et al, 2021). 3 Concerns around the harmful effects of such narratives upon young people have also been raised in studies on eco-distress and climate anxiety (Bailey et al, 2021;Baker et al, 2021;RCPsych, 2021).…”

Changing the climate risk trajectory for coral reefs

“…The urgency of climate action has previously been defined as the required reaction time divided by the time left to avoid a bad outcome (Lenton et al, 2019). When the urgency exceeds one, control has effectively been lost and conditions are described as a climate emergency (McHugh et al, 2021). This definition can be recast in terms of our risk trajectories as the time to transition from the current risk trajectory to an acceptable risk trajectory, divided by the time before an unacceptable risk level on the current trajectory (Figure 1B).…”

Dethroning the Planetary Perspective: Dealing with Actually-Occurring Transformations Using Dialogical Sense-Making and Critical Phenomenology

“…The language tends towards the language of systems; thresholds, regime shifts, tipping points, planetary boundaries, extinction (Herrfahrdt-Pähle et al, 2020;Hoddy, 2021, Mehta andHarcourt, 2021;) as though unintended and undesirable transformations should naturally be studied through systems science and its related techniques. The temporalities associated with such ontologies are those of countdowns and the fast-approaching environmental 'event horizons' (Moser, 2020;McHugh et al, 2021;Patterson et al, 2021). This creates an epistemic feedback loop or closure, fuelling 'cockpitism' and breeding urgency in governance responses, which can close down on potential alternative ways of imagining transformation (Castree, 2021;Priebe et al, 2021).…”