A presentation from Professor Monika Büscher and Dr Nicola Spurling at the DecarboN8 Workshop, 'Decarbonising Transport: Connecting Carbon Targets to Action' held at the Institute for Transport Studies on 07/01/20

1. Making Mobility Futures:
Carbon pathways and
Societal Readiness
Monika Büscher and Nicola Spurling
Societal Readiness Theme, Lancaster University
https://decarbon8.org.uk
7 January 2020 Theme Carbon Pathways Workshop

2. UNEP 2019
What should we do?

3. We can never do one thing.
Harding, in Urry 2016
Meadowhall
Shopping Centre
8th November 2019
Is society ready for it?
Metro

4. Such an automobility system comprises six components that in
their combination generate and reproduce the ‘specific character of
domination’ that it exercises: Urry 2004
the quintessential
manufactured object
the major item of individual
consumption after housing which
provides status
an extraordinarily powerful complex of industries
the predominant global form of ‘quasi-private’
mobility that subordinates other mobilities
the dominant culture that sustains major
discourses of what constitutes the good life
the single most
important cause
of environmental
resource-use
We can never do one thing.
Harding, in Urry 2016

5. What does (auto)mobility do to society?
scarcity
austerity
growth
● Turn the right to the city and freedom
into an individual right to mobility
● Grows mobility injustice & inequality
● Dehumanise spaces - from
street to planet
● Affects health
● Locks us in

6. 485Affiliates across the globe Guardian Oct 2019
Guardian Sep 2019
6 million 64%
66%
79%
86%
88%
of Americans believe we
are in the middle of
climate crisis
of Chinese,
Australian, German,
and British citizens
understand that
climate change is
mostly caused by
humans
70% of British people want urgent political action to tackle climate Climate Change Coalition 2019
Is society ready for it?

9. ABC is a political and not just theoretical
position in that it obscures the extent to
which governments sustain
unsustainable economic institutions and
ways of life. Shove 2010:1274

10. Social Acceptability and Societal Readiness Levels for Systemic Innovation

11. • What we know from the morning is
that this is a massive challenge, we
need radical, rapid transformation
• We’ve done this before: Polanyi 1944
• Disruptive innovation (ITF, FoE, DecarboN8))
• A Great Transformation is something people do,
in their everyday lives, and they need to be able
to do it, so how ready are our innovations for
society?
• What can we DO to make transformation do-able
and liveable?
A great mobilities transformation
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/transport/itf-transport-outlook-2019_transp_outlook-en-2019-en

12. What are our
disruptive,
transformative,
innovations? In
response to the
carbon pathways?
Why those? How?
When?
What’s their
societal
readiness?

13. Making Mobility Futures
• Get into groups of 2
• Open your envelope. Don’t share
your detailed brief just yet
• Build a future place with people
living in it
• Backcast: What happened to
make that future possible.
• Document: Mark each significant
event with media reports from
the future.

14. Making Mobility Futures
• Get into groups of 2
• Open your envelope. Don’t share
your detailed brief just yet
• Build a future place with people
living in it
• Backcast: What happened to
make that future possible.
• Document: Mark each significant
event with media reports from
the future.

15. Making Mobility Futures
• Get into groups of 2
• Open your envelope. Don’t share your
detailed brief just yet
• Build a future place with people
living in it
• Backcast: What happened to make
that future possible.
• Document: Mark each significant
event with media reports from the
future.

16. Making Mobility Futures
• Get into groups of 2
• Open your envelope. Don’t share
your detailed brief just yet
• Build a future place with people
living in it
• Backcast: What happened to
make that future possible.
• Document: Mark each significant
event with media reports from
the future.
→ 13:45ish

17. Making Mobility Futures
• Get together with your other
group (same place)
• Discuss your visions and
pathways
• What do we need to know to
achieve decarbonised futures in
these specific places?
• Write two or more research
questions on the yellow paper.
→ 14:15ish

18. Making Mobility Futures
→ Present/go round
• Do the same questions arise in different places?
• What different questions arise?
• Are society/innovations ready for each other?
How do we know? And where? For whom?
• What processes can support co-development of
places, society, technology to get on good
carbon pathways?
→ Cluster questions
→ 15:15ish

19. Making Mobility Futures
→ We now have some key questions.
• Who are key stakeholders able to contribute
to shaping carbon pathways and getting on
good ones?
• How can we accelerate delivery of
findings/conclusions, ACTIONS?
→ 15:45ish

20. What next?
● Call responses and projects
● Upcoming workshops
● Conference
● +++
https://decarbon8.org.uk

21. This project has received funding from EPSRC under grant reference No. EP/S032002/1