Climate Change as a Transformation Challenge

An article about the New Climate Policy Paradigm

  • Publications 20.04.2016

The Paris Agreement marks a milestone in international climate policy. Though the positive appraisal was not unanimous. Lukas Hermwille from the Wuppertal Institute argues in his paper "Climate Change as a Transformation Challenge. A New Climate Policy Paradigm?" that the Paris Agreement embraces a new paradigm. Climate change is no longer seen as a clear-cut environmental problem, nor as a developmental issue, but as a challenge to fundamentally transform global societies. The Paris Agreement should be acknowledged as a pacemaker for the transformation processes that lay ahead of us.

Climate change is a collective action problem. Such problems can only be resolved if the global community engages in collective cooperative effort. Over time, the perception of the climate change problem has shifted significantly. The scope of the problem definition gradually increased to a fundamental transformation of global societies.

If one accepts that climate change is a transformation challenge, then the Paris Agreement is a significant step in the right direction. It provides the starting point of this process, not the end. It does not provide a precise itinerary like a satnav would do, but instead provides a common sense of direction like a compass.

The article was published in the journal GAIA and is available at the Wuppertal Institute publication server.


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