Towards Actionable Science: Integrating Social Sciences into the National Climate Assessment.
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The National Climate Assessment (NCA) is a quadrennial assessment produced by the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and mandated by the Global Change Research Act of 1990. The report captures current knowledge on climate science, impacts of climate change, and vulnerabilities to change in the United States, with the goal of supporting decision-making across a range of sectors. While the GCRA requires the report to include an assessment of impacts to “human social systems,” the social sciences have historically played a relatively small role in the framing and content of the report. The research community has increasingly called for fuller integration of social science in climate change research and the NCA to support a more complete understanding of climate-society dynamics and the production of actionable research. In order to advance these goals the USGCRP Social Science Coordinating Committee undertook an evaluation of social science integration in the Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4). The findings reveal that chapter author teams used social science as a lens through which to connect climate risks and impacts to societal values and actions. Integration of social science into NCA4 represents substantial and important progress, however gaps remain in the report’s content and framing, as well as aspects of the writing process. Although risk-based framing places climate impacts in the context of societal values, it is not necessarily inclusive of the broad range of relevant social science such as research on perceptions and institutional arrangements. Moreover, the notion that climate change poses risks ‘to’ society perpetuates the dichotomy that climate change is separate from and acts on society, rather than being an inherent condition of it. Alterative framings such as problem oriented framing may provide a more actionable assessment and merit further discussion. In addition, report writing is itself a social process and engagement with a wide range of audiences, from local stakeholders to national experts brought a variety of perspectives into conversation and created opportunities for community building. This talk will provide reflections on progress and ways forward towards an equal role for social sciences in climate science assessment and greater impact in society.