The ‘Super Wickedness’ of Climate Change
Is climate change a phenomenon beyond our control?
The age of the Anthropocene is one of an unsettling disjuncture between scientific reality and lived experience. Despite the unequivocal warnings from climate scientists and proliferation of unusual weather events, such evidence fails to instigate the deep structural change necessary to redress climate change. Because developed modes of living are founded on emissions-intensive behaviours, the climate crisis demands a deep rethinking and restructuring of daily lives.
Pursuing this aim on an individual level can oftentimes feel insignificant and futile. As consumers it is almost impossible to avoid products that are detrimental to the environment. The great lengths taken by many to minimise their carbon footprint can feel pointless in the face of fossil fuel lobbying and the carbon-dense lifestyles of the ultra-rich. For most citizens of the world, politics is besieged by nonchalant politicians who espouse greenwashing rhetoric, whilst also endorsing the continued extraction and consumption of fossil fuels. For instance, despite declaring a climate emergency in 2019, the UK has only implemented credible policies for just over a third of its emissions budget reductions.
‘Mainstream policy mechanisms fail to challenge the paradigm of unlimited economic growth, the principle means for exploiting the environment’.
International climate negotiations are beset by a stalemate over the issue of climate justice. Despite vast differences in historical emissions, the Global North claims it bears no ethical responsibility to the Global South. Mainstream policy mechanisms fail to challenge the paradigm of unlimited economic growth, the principle means for exploiting the environment. The longer progress is delayed, the more likely scientific-technical solutions will be pursued, as opposed to social and structural transformations.
In addition to these political, economic and social factors, climate change is problematic in scientific terms. Greenhouse gases (GHG) are both prolific in everyday life, whilst also being invisible to the naked eye. This reduces their salience in the media and relegates their importance in decision-making when compared to other threats that are more tangible. Efforts to reduce GHG emissions tend to be poorly regulated, making it easy for governments and corporations to exaggerate their savings. Adding further complexity is the uncertainty of tipping points in the climate system, which when exceeded lead to large, irreversible damages.
The nature of climate change therefore poses difficulties for traditional policy making methods. These tend to focus on a narrow set of objectives, such as cost-efficiency. Often policies are based on past successes or failures, making the assumption that progress occurs in a linear fashion. Because the environment underpins all other social and economic issues, climate change requires consideration of a wide array of objectives. Policies must account for the non-linear impacts of climate change, since large-scale, anthropogenically changing weather patterns are unprecedented and unpredictable.
This has led many scholars to describe climate change as a ‘super wicked problem’. Super wicked problems exhibit four central features according to Levin et al. (2012):
Time is running out.
Those who cause the problem also seek to provide a solution.
The central authority needed to address it is weak or non-existent.
Policy responses discount the future irrationally.
Climate change exhibits all of these super wicked traits. As the IPCC makes clear, we have less than two decades to halt emissions to irreversibly dangerous levels. Many of the key perpetrators of climate change and our vulnerability to it, are also those offering solutions (think BP and Monsanto). The UNFCCC is beset with political divisions and lacks the authority to legally enforce climate targets. Politics fixates on short-lived terms and excludes younger and future generations. The economy pursues GDP profit in the short-term, extracting and commodifying natural value to sustain this aim. Environmental law is based on precedent (previous legal rulings), and is thus unable to think adaptively about the future.
‘The mainstream western development model persists in espousing the belief that increasing material consumption can be pursued, in spite of climate change, because ‘There Is No Alternative’’.
However, there is also danger in ascribing climate change the title of a ‘super wicked problem’. The language we employ to frame a particular issue carries with it culturally-specific assumptions and meaning. Epistemologically, words define the parameters of a problem and its possible solutions. The mainstream western development model persists in espousing the belief that increasing material consumption can be pursued, in spite of climate change, because ‘There Is No Alternative’. In this context, the term ‘super wicked problem’ carries with it the implicit assumption that There Is No Solution. By framing climate change as irreconcilable, it encourages a mindset of apathy and resignation to the inevitable consequences of the relentless surge of economic growth. Representing climate change as the problem, rather than an effect of, detracts from its root cause: the structural inequality of our extractive, globalised economy.
The facets of super wicked problems also fail to capture the nuances in climate change dynamics. Though time is running out, for those countries already reckoning with the effects of climate change, it already has run out. Because the majority of Earth’s inhabitants are to some degree responsible for causing climate change, solutions will inevitably be pursued by the perpetrators, many of which are effective. Owing to the vastly different experiences of climate change and responsibility for it, central authorities such as the UNFCCC are hindered by political disagreements that embody structural inequalities between the Global North and Global South.
Therefore, conceptualising climate change requires a language that recognises the disparities in its effects and the nuances in quality of solutions. Further, acknowledging it as the outcome of structural inequality, as well as its intersectionality with other social justice issues, can help with the social and economic transformation required. Emphasising the fact that we have the capacity to solve climate change and create a society founded on ecological integrity and justice is important. It provides more incentive for changing widespread behaviours in the long-term than simply describing it as an intractable, ‘super wicked problem’. Representing it as an issue that can be addressed at multiple levels provides more impetus for decentralised efforts.
‘Through restructuring socio-technical systems along more egalitarian and ecocentric lines, the process of creative destruction could help dissemble the coarse wires of structural inequality that initiated the climate crisis’.
A useful concept is that of ‘creative destruction’ (Kivimaa and Kern, 2016). Creative destruction describes a process whereby new policies are pursued to destabilise the pre-existing regime. Herein, bottom-up pressure from technical, social and organisational innovations respond to the top-down pressure exerted by the environment and macro-political trends. Those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo tend to be higher up on the economic hierarchy. Therefore, the emphasis on decentralised, bottom-up pressure could help galvanise the kinds of change necessary to transition away from an extractive, emissions-intense economy. Through restructuring socio-technical systems along more egalitarian and ecocentric lines, the process of creative destruction could help dissemble the coarse wires of structural inequality that initiated the climate crisis. Though climate change is in many ways super wicked, shoe boxing it as so will not lead to the radical change necessary to engender deep socio-technical transformation. It highlights the importance of employing language reflectively, in order to frame the issue appropriately and provide a variety of solutions.
