Future climate narratives: knowledge informing climate change adaptation

Abstract

In the current era, recognized by some as the Anthropocene, consequences from climate change are affecting ecosystems, societies and economies; making it vital to enact adaptation measures to manage impacts that cannot be avoided. Significant resources and attention have been invested to improve climate knowledge and its communication on a global level, which is essential for adaptation. However, some facility with prospection, or future thinking is also needed to plan for uncertain and future-oriented risks. Future thinking is a cognitive task initiated by individuals who may be engaged in planning for their own family or community. Such autonomous adaptation is not well studied but may have a profound effect on the future trajectory of both climate and society. Therefore, this research focused on what future climate narratives are being constructed and shared by those engaged in working with climate change knowledge; and to share those more broadly. In this research, interviews with Australian and Canadian professionals who worked with climate change in research, policy, and practice were analysed to gauge in what way their climate knowledge was linked to autonomous adaptation in personal circles. A novel Future Climate Narrative (FCN) typology was developed as a structural guide for qualitative analysis, informed by literature relating to future thinking, climate change adaptation and narrative communication. Consequently, inductive thematic analysis identified four main climate change adaptation narratives focused on: Distance, Vulnerability, Agency, and Change. The research finds that even well-informed professionals who are willing to address climate change in public, are reluctant to discuss the topic in personal and social circles; instead, engaging in Distance Narratives that position climate issues as affecting future generations and faraway lands. Participants made binary assessments when using Vulnerability and Agency Narratives to depict threats as either negligible, due to high social capacity to adapt and so requiring no additional personal agency; or as overwhelming, if that social net was insufficient and therefore, personal agency would be insignificant in the face of global change. Neither assessment motivated improving personal agency to adapt to climate change. In contrast, the few participants who engage in Change Narratives express a sense of personal agency to enable transformation as a response to expected disruptions and display a facility to mentally link with the past to inform the future. However, the incompatibility of the Change and Distance Narratives creates a barrier to sharing plans for autonomous adaptation in social circles. To develop well informed and well-shared climate change adaptation narratives, old understandings need to be updated with increased focus on future thinking to continually imagine and re-imagine adaptive behaviours. Otherwise, possible benefits from current adaptive advantages may not be realized. Considering autonomous adaptation to climate change, the convergent contexts of climate change, the imagined future and shared personal narratives chart a small but growing field of academic inquiry, to which this research contributes.