Rendering the future governable: Navigating temporality and uncertainty in Oslo’s climate transformation

Abstract

This paper examines the procedures through which climate change can be rendered governable in the present. Climate change has generally been approached as an abstract, global, and long-term problem, thereby disconnecting it from the places and times in which decisions are made. Relational thinking in geography has articulated the local and regional levels of climate governance, hence foregrounding the practices through which the climate is situated in concrete local and organisational contexts. However, in time climate change has remained an abstract and long-term problem. This calls for studies of how the need for rapid climate action can be established in the present, and how climate governance can be aligned with the temporal rhythms in which organisations operate. This paper examines Oslo’s “climate budgets”, an innovative governance tool which integrates climate planning into the regular municipal budgeting cycle. It brings attention to the practices through which different temporalities of climate action are aligned, how climate change is rendered legible, and how uncertainties are managed. Drawing on the literatures on temporality and governmentality, it develops a conceptual approach to assess the practices through which responsibility for global, long-term concerns can be articulated in the present.