To Örebro University

This article is a reply to Johan Söderberg’s critique of constructivist environmental sociology. Lidskog and Sundqvist challenge his claim that the climate emergency requires social scientists to refrain from conducting sociological analyses of climate science, on the grounds that such analyses could be exploited by climate denialists. They argue that Söderberg bases his reasoning on simplified dichotomies—such as the choice between taking scientific knowledge for granted or problematizing it—and that he incorrectly attributes positions to them that they do not hold. The authors defend STS-inspired research that legitimizes critical examination of expertise, not to undermine climate science but to understand how knowledge is produced, organized, and used politically. By analyzing, for example, the IPCC, they show that climate expertise is already politically embedded and therefore requires sociological study. They call for a clearer justification of Söderberg’s own knowledge realism and open the possibility of collaboration between research on expertise and research on climate denial, rather than keeping these strands separate.

Global environmental assessments (GEAs) provide authoritative expert knowledge on environmental issues for an international audience. Demand for GEAs is growing rapidly: their number is increasing, and their thematic scope continually expands. At the same time, the environmental, social, and political context in which GEAs operate has changed dramatically over their 50-year history. Anthropogenic environmental problems have worsened significantly, while calls for just and equitable transformations are intensifying. In response, GEAs have begun to shift from primarily diagnosing problems to offering solutions and influencing policy, and more recently, towards supporting sustainability transformations. Assessment bodies increasingly recognize that meeting these novel ambitions requires deeper engagement from social sciences and humanities (SSH). However, efforts to include these disciplines have encountered considerable challenges. In this paper, we argue that for GEAs to effectively engage SSH, they must move beyond the prevailing paradigm of environmental assessment based on objectivity, singularity, and linearity, and instead experiment with the plurality and reflexivity of a broader range of knowledges. Such an approach is essential for advancing transformative societal changes. Achieving this requires fundamental reforms to GEA structures and processes. We propose five critical steps for making GEAs more responsive to emerging challenges and more reflexive about their responsibilities within global governance regimes.

The global community remains significantly off track in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), prompting calls for not only stronger political commitments but also more effective and credible expert guidance. This paper contributes to this discourse by examining a critical form of global environmental expertise: the conductof global environmental assessments. Such expertise has become a foundational component of the institutional architecture underpinning global sustainability governance. Focusing on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), one of the most prominent and widely recognized international expert bodies, this study examines the challenges that researchers face when synthesizing research findings and making them policyrelevant within the IPCC’s assessment work. The empirical material consists of an interview study (N = 18) conducted with experts involved in the IPCC, from its first assessment (1990) to the most recent one (2023). The data were analyzed thematically using NVivo.The analysis reveals four key internal challenges that the IPCC must address to enhanceits advisory capacity: epistemic hierarchies, leadership and management dynamics, the complexities of formulating recommendations, and inequities in recognition and reward systems. By identifying and analyzing these challenges, the paper contributes to ongoing discussions about the IPCC’s future development and offers broader insights into the evolving role of scientific expertise in global environmental governance.

This paper analyzes how the IPCC understands and addresses with risk and uncertainty. First, it discusses the IPCC’s formal and explicit view on how it understands, manages, and communicates risk and uncertainty in its knowledge assessments. This is done through an analysis of the documents that the IPCC has produced on the subject. The analysis reveals that the IPCC has an ambitious yet complicated system for identifying, assessing, and managing risk and uncertainty. The paper then explores how IPCC experts – researchers appointed by the IPCC to conduct its knowledge assessments – view this system and use it to determine risk and uncertainty. This is done through an interview study with IPCC experts. The analysis indicates that there are tensions in the way knowledge, uncertainty, and risk are viewed. Interviewees made limited reference to the IPCC’s formalized view of risk and uncertainty, but based on the little they did say, it appears to help them manage not only risk and uncertainty, but also internal disagreements and divergent research traditions. Finally, the paper draws conclusions about the challenges that the IPCC will face and need to address regarding risk and uncertainty.

Despite the enormous growth of scientific data on the environmental impact of human activities and ambitious efforts to synthesise and communicate this knowledge to policymakers, expert advice has not resulted in sufficient societal action. This raises the issue of science-policy relations and there are reasons to ask if and how science matters in international negotiations and political decision-making. This chapter responds to this question and explores how science works in practice when trying to influence policymaking, and also suggests how science can become more policy-relevant. Drawing on the academic fields of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and International Relations (IR), it shows how scientific knowledge can be made more relevant for policy and practice by a shift from focusing on scientific results (products) to the processes of making these results reliable and also useable. The chapter explicates this practice-oriented view by analysing the IPCC’s work and finds that it does not take the opportunity to utilize its manifold of connections to political actors in order to support and better influence the  political work to achieve the targets of the Paris Agreement. Instead these political processes and connections are hidden backstage while presenting at frontstage a seemingly autonomous and policy neutral  science in the form of assessment reports (products). 

This study explores the nature and significance of a crucial form of global environmental expertise: that which relates to conducting global environmental assessments with the aim of influencing decision-making. Drawing on the theory of expertise, which conceptualizes expertise as a social position defined by epistemic practice, this study focuses on expertise in the context of global environmental challenges—particularly relating to climate change and the IPCC—highlighting the expertise required to address this kind of complex and multifaceted issue. This type of expertise allows for a synthesis of the current state of environmental challenges, the proposal of options for action, and communication of these findings to decision-makers and society at large. This expertise shapes knowledge that is much broader than a single disciplinary field, encompassing both ecological and social dynamics, and allows for the development of recommendations for action. This study finds that such expertise embodies a distinct epistemic practice with four key characteristics that distinguish it from more narrowly defined forms of expertise and introduces the term “mega-expertise” to capture the character and position of this kind of expertise. This study concludes by reflecting on the broader implications of this form of expertise, considering its relationship to more traditional, disciplinary scientific expertise.

This article theorizes the role of sharing in the broader transformation of society toward sustainability. In a context where overconsumption prevails, adopting strategies that move away from reliance on private possessions and ownership and in the direction of more collective approaches, such as the sharing of goods, resources, and services, is crucial. We undertake an integrative literature review specifically predicated on a theoretical understanding of the social conditions for nonprofit sharing. It builds on a conceptual model of the social that is based on five facets: inner life, social relationships and interactions, socio-material arrangements, social stratification, and institutions. We stress that while digitalization and smart use of technology may facilitate the mainstreaming of some sharing practices, not least through market-based initiatives, there is a risk that these forms of commercialized sharing will only complement continued and increased consumption. Therefore, the decisive and urgent question is to foster a nonprofit sharing economy that also counteracts consumerism and overconsumption, and a prerequisite for this objective is to develop and support more noncommercial forms of sharing. Prioritizing the five facets of the social provides insights into the various opportunities, barriers, and challenges that organizers of nonprofit sharing face. These insights can be further tested in policy and practice and explored in future research.

Environmental expertise is a frequently used concept in environmental discussions and in environmental research. It is often seen as crucial for environmental policy-making and environmental discourses. Through its competence, authority and mandate, expertise offers guidance to organizations and individuals concerning how to understand, address and manage environmental issues. At the same time, expertise is often questioned; its capacity to deliver both trustworthy and relevant knowledge is contested. This entry discusses the meaning of expertise, both the social and epistemic base for becoming an expert and the importance it has. Environmental expertise is a key concept for environmental sociology but, at the same time, is a concept that needs to be further elaborated and studied.

The gap between what is known about climate change and the action taken to prevent it has instigated debates around how to reconfigure global environmental assessment organizations to better inform and foster transformative change. One recurring request involves the need for a broader and better inclusion of social scientific knowledge. However, despite such intentions, the inclusion of social scientific research remains limited. How can this be explained? Through a detailed analysis of the IPCC special report on limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, this article reveals how the institutional conditions of global environmental assessments condition and shape what knowledge is included in these assessments, as well as how this knowledge is represented. It discusses how and why the understanding of social processes and structures remains underdeveloped, despite such knowledge being critical for transformative change. To integrate such knowledge into environmental assessments would require substantial changes to the current epistemic infrastructure used by global environmental assessments. It is therefore time to think beyond global environmental assessments and consider complementary institutional science–policy relations through which social scientific research can assist policy actions to promote deep transformative change.