A low carbon society needs dialogue: Challenges and benefits of a dialogue with key actors from science and civil society

Ernst, Anna

Conference Presentation (After Call)

FZJ-2015-06988

A low carbon society needs dialogue: Challenges and benefits of a dialogue with key actors from science and civil society

Ernst, A. (Corresponding author)FZJ*

2015

100% Climate Neutrality: Solutions for crossing borders, Sonderborg, Denmark, 6 Oct 2015 - 7 Oct 2015 [10.34734/FZJ-2015-06988]

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Please use a persistent id in citations: doi:10.34734/FZJ-2015-06988

Abstract: A low carbon society needs dialogue: Challenges and benefits of a dialogue with key actors from science and civil society Successful climate change governance depends on improved collaboration between science and society, to develop robust and applicable knowledge to address wicked problems. However science-policy interfaces are challenged by a lack of communication and cooperation between science and practice. Accordingly the biggest challenges of holistic and effective climate mitigation strategies are the successful participation of diverse actors and the integration of different knowledge types. Furthermore the transformation towards sustainable development postulates a new role for scientists to engage in social processes to enhance co-production of knowledge but also to ensure knowledge integration in the decision making process. To foster and test forms of collaboration we have set up a dialogue process between science and civil society in North Rhine-Westphalia to discuss challenges and pathways towards a low-carbon society. The process was divided in three process phases: interview phase, dialogue phase and evaluation phase. The first phase aimed to build trust and identify relevant issues of dialogue. The dialogue phase consisted of five workshops about previous defined and by the stakeholders (participants) decided topics. The third project phase is currently ongoing and evaluates the dialogue process. The paper will in depth describe how we tackled the main challenges of science-policy interfaces: lack of trust, lack of problem awareness or insufficient problem framing and unbalanced problem ownership etc.. Our findings suggest that the real outcome of such dialogue is not building consensus but rather to contribute to decision making by creating a better understanding within the involved stakeholders and thus establish a social learning process.

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