Karen O'Brien, Susanne Moser, Ioan Fazey and others from Future Earth's Transformations Knowledge-Action Network discuss mobilising research around the social challenge of a 1.5°C target for climate action.

1. Transformations to sustainability -
pathways and politics
Melissa Leach

2. Source: Raworth 2012,
based on Rockström et
al 2009
‘Steering pathways within a safe and just space for humanity’
Scoones et al 2015

3. Source: Leach,
Raworth and
Rockström
(WSSR 2013)
Multiple possible pathways
Plural transformations

4. Politicising the directions of transformation
Whose boundaries? Whose
safety?
Whose goals?
Sustainability & resilience
of what for whom?
Which pathways?
Choosing and shaping
interlocked with power
Who gains, who loses? Planetary
boundaries as power grab, undermining
justice and democracy?

5. Drivers of transformation
• Technology-led
• Market-led
• State-led
• Citizen-led
• Transformative alliances, hybrid governance

6. 6
Citizen-led transformations – building from grassroots
innovation, mobilisation and collective action, scaling up through
networks
Slum and shack
dwellers’
networks
Food sovereignty
and agroecology

7. 7
Transformative alliances – novel relationships between
state, market and societal actors that challenge and
rework political, economic and social structures
Zero carbon energy
Ecological
agriculture

8. 8
Emergent pathways – involving alignments in diverse bottom-
up marginal interests; small changes can add up to big ones

9. 9
Transformational politics, engaged social science
Challenging unsustainable and unjust pathways, appreciating
alternatives, facilitating transformational pathways
Bottom-up as well as top-down
Plural – to respect and respond to diverse perspectives and contexts
Deliberative – fostering inclusive, democratic debate around goals, and
means to get there
Networked and alliance-based – combining formal and informal
processes, planning and mobilisation, leadership and distributed action
Politically-engaged – challenging and shifting political-economic
structures; influencing policy processes; mobilising
Reflexive knowledge and political engagements - in which we take our
positionality seriously, and encourage this in others

10. Social Transformations on the
Path to 1.5⁰C
Susi Moser, Ph.D.
Susanne Moser Research & Consulting
Stanford University

11. % Nominations by expertise:
Physical
climate
Ethics & equity
Psychosocial underpinnings
Impacts
T. pathways
Policy
instruments
Mitigation/
adaptation

12. Between the Impossible and the Unthinkable
“That is where we are:
Stuck between the impossible and the unthinkable.
David Roberts, Ted talk (2012)
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pznsPkJy2x8
And so for the rest of your life,
your job is to make the impossible possible.”

13. It always seems impossible,
until it’s done.
Nelson Mandela
Photo:Mandela:TheManandHisCountry

14. Holding the Tension
Photo: from ifcat.org

15. When an old culture is dying
the new culture is born from
a few people who are not
afraid to be insecure.
Rudolf Bahro (German activist)
Bartel Thorvaldsen's Dying Lion

16. Shaping Our Response
Bottom-up
Top-down
GlobalLocal
Fast
Slow
Nonlinear,
Disruptive
Radical/deepAdaptive
Linked
GROWING CLIMATE DISRUPTION

17. Science for an epic challenge:
science beyond the mainstream
• History
• Sociology
• Anthropology & paleo-
sciences
• Psychology
• Philosophy
• …

18. Entering The Long Emergency
If you want to go fast
go alone.
If you want to go far
go together.
African proverb
And if you need to go far fast …