Abstract
Climate impacts increasingly unfold in interlinked systems of people, nature, and infrastructure. The cascading consequences are revealing sometimes surprising connections across sectors and regions, and prospects for climate responses also depend on complex, difficult-to-understand interactions. In this commentary, we build on the innovations of the United States Fifth National Climate Assessment to suggest a framework for understanding and responding to complex climate challenges. This approach involves: (a) integration of disciplines and expertise to understand how intersectionality shapes complex climate impacts and the wide-ranging effects of climate responses, (b) collaborations among diverse knowledge holders to improve responses and better encompass intersectionality, and (c) sustained experimentation with and learning about governance approaches capable of handling the complexity of climate change. Together, these three pillars underscore that usability of climate-relevant knowledge requires transdisciplinary coordination of research and practice. We outline actionable steps for climate research to incorporate intersectionality, integration, and innovative governance, as is increasingly necessary for confronting climate complexity and sustaining equitable, ideally vibrant climate futures.
| Original language | English |
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| Article number | e2023EF004392 |
| Journal | Earth's Future |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue number | 6 |
| DOIs |
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| State | Published - Jun 2024 |
Funding
CB and DLM acknowledge support from the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT‐Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy. For JG, this work has been partly supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF Grant 2239859). KJ acknowledges support from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science award DE‐SC0016605, “A Framework for Improving Analysis and Modeling of Earth System and Intersectoral Dynamics at Regional Scales (HyperFACETS).” The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, UT‐Battelle, the U.S. Department of Energy, or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. CB and DLM acknowledge support from the Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, for the U.S. Department of Energy. For JG, this work has been partly supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF Grant 2239859). KJ acknowledges support from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science award DE-SC0016605, “A Framework for Improving Analysis and Modeling of Earth System and Intersectoral Dynamics at Regional Scales (HyperFACETS).” The views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, UT-Battelle, the U.S. Department of Energy, or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.