气候变化领域集成服务门户(CCPortal): 'Maintaining planetary systems' or 'concentrating global power?' High stakes in contending framings of climate geoengineering

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DOI	10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.04.005
	'Maintaining planetary systems' or 'concentrating global power?' High stakes in contending framings of climate geoengineering
	Cairns R.; Stirling A.
发表日期	2014
ISSN	0959-3780
卷号	28 期号:1
英文摘要	'Climate geoengineering' is becoming an increasingly prominent focus for global discussion and action. Yet, in academic, policy and wider political discourse, the frequent shorthand term 'geoengineering' is routinely used in very broad, ambiguous and multivalent ways. This study aims to contribute to understandings of these divergent current framings of 'geoengineering' and their implications. It asks not only about disparate understandings of geoengineering itself, but also what these reveal about deeper political dynamics around climate change, science and technology. To this end, the paper applies Q methodology to analyse geoengineering as a subjective discursive construct, the bounds of which are continually negotiated and contested. Thirty-five participants from a variety of political and institutional backgrounds in the UK, US, Canada and Japan undertook a 'Q sort' of 48 statements about geoengineering between December 2012 and February 2013. Four distinctive framings emerged from this analysis, labelled: 'At the very least we need more research'; 'We are the planetary maintenance engineers'; 'Geoengineering is a political project'; and 'Let's focus on Carbon.' Results indicate a strong polarity around divergently construed pros and cons of geoengineering as a whole - underscoring the political salience of this term. But additional axes of difference suggest a more nuanced picture than straightforward pro/anti-positioning. The ambiguity of the term is argued to offer interpretive flexibility for articulating diverse interests within and across contending framings. The paper questions whether increasing terminological precision will necessarily facilitate greater clarity in resulting multivalent governance discussions and public engagement. It argues that the merits of any given form of precision and their policy implications will depend on particular framings. Much ambiguity in this area may thus be irreducible, with the challenges lying perhaps less in the ordering of discourse and more in reconciling the wider material political pluralities that this suggests. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.
英文关键词	Climate engineering; Discourse; Framing; Geoengineering; Q method
学科领域	carbon cycle; climate change; environmental planning; global perspective; political geography; carbon; climate modeling; engineering geology; participatory approach; policy implementation; political change; precision; spatiotemporal analysis; Canada; Japan; United Kingdom; United States
语种	英语
scopus关键词	carbon cycle; climate change; environmental planning; global perspective; political geography; carbon; climate modeling; engineering geology; participatory approach; policy implementation; political change; precision; spatiotemporal analysis; Canada; Japan; United Kingdom; United States
来源期刊	Global Environmental Change
文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://gcip.llas.ac.cn/handle/2XKMVOVA/117768
作者单位	SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9SL, United Kingdom
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Cairns R.,Stirling A.. 'Maintaining planetary systems' or 'concentrating global power?' High stakes in contending framings of climate geoengineering[J],2014,28(1).
APA	Cairns R.,&Stirling A..(2014).'Maintaining planetary systems' or 'concentrating global power?' High stakes in contending framings of climate geoengineering.Global Environmental Change,28(1).
MLA	Cairns R.,et al."'Maintaining planetary systems' or 'concentrating global power?' High stakes in contending framings of climate geoengineering".Global Environmental Change 28.1(2014).