Rethinking climate change research: Clean technology, culture and communication edited by Pernille Almlund, Per Homann Jespersen and Søren Riishad is a book which I was excited to review. Its central thesis of utilizing multi-disciplinary approaches to climate research is not new to me although reading it will hopefully enable physical climate scientists to critically (re)think their own research approach. My understanding of what constitutes effective research and teaching is a willingness to step out of the normalized disciplinary boundaries of the physical sciences and to pay greater attention to socio-cultural aspects in researching climate change. If non-state actors are to have an increased role in climate strategy/policy, then a multi-disciplinary approach, which this book advocates, is the only sensible research path to pursue.

This book will appeal to readers of all academic levels and policy-makers. It sets out the multi-disciplinary research approach from the outset, with clean technology, culture and communication as its focal research lenses. This book excels at illustrating how these different research lenses are inextricably linked and interdependent. The first section quite rightly claims that cultural contexts and communication are crucial to successful technological development (p. 4) and that some cultures will prosper due to technology developments, whilst other cultures will have to ‘change their means of production' (p. 8). Such changes will inevitably have repercussions for climate policy in a multi-spatial governance context, requiring innovative (and radical?) ways of researching climate change. Such changes, the editing authors argue, require common trust and global understanding. Developing trust has always been based on how we express and sustain the social and cultural connections around us; what Giddens (1990 Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Google Scholar]) called ‘facework commitments’. This is why successful communication and understanding of climate change cannot solely be based upon the natural sciences paradigm. This book represents an antidote to the current research precedent of climate reductionism (Hulme, 2011 Hulme, M. (2011). Reducing the future to climate: A story of climate determinism and reductionism. Osiris, 26, 245–266. doi: 10.1086/661274[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]) by bringing the socio-cultural back into research and policy focus.

The second section introduces research focused on clean technology. The various authors in this section cite how successful technology needs to be facilitated through increased support for innovation and entrepreneurship by central and municipal governments; increased consumer buy-in; strong governance networks, alliances and collaborations that instil institutional capacity without necessarily needing government support; behavioural shifts in the way we use our energy and even through the use of games to understand the ethical implications of sustainability. Each chapter is fluently written and interspersed with easy to remember examples and concepts. I particularly enjoyed reading the chapter by Christensen and Kjær which examines how the concept of ‘CleanTech’ works on a business model that creates multiple opportunities for a company or group of collaborators when novel technologies are invented but not commercially viable. They aptly call this process bridging the ‘valley of death’. The other chapter that appealed to me was Holm, Stauning and Sondergaard's study of local transition strategies for low carbon construction and housing. Examining the role of Danish municipalities in instilling multi-scalar governance networks that shape the norms and actors associated with socio-technical systems, this chapter offers an empirical local case study analysis into the ways in which dominant socio-technical regimes are enervated by changes in the landscape (the rise in energy prices, shifting agendas and changes in national policy (p. 45)) or niche innovations (new technologies, social entrepreneurialism and alternative construction practices). The authors of this chapter argue that the catalysing of place-specific approaches to ‘local development, community cohesion and social welfare' (p. 51) can ultimately exert influence at higher policy scales like the national level. This complements the following chapter by Lybæk, Hansen and Andersen which examines non-fossil energy systems in the absence of strong climate change global governance. The importance of local governance and networks and the nuanced processes of scalar manoeuvring illustrated in these chapters resonates with my own research (Kythreotis & Jonas, 2012 Kythreotis, A. P., & Jonas, A. E. J. (2012). Scaling sustainability? How voluntary groups negotiate spaces of sustainability governance in the United Kingdom. Environment and Planning D Society and Space, 30, 381–399. doi: 10.1068/d11810[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]), illustrating that local experience(s) are integral in driving policy fixes for climate change at higher spatial policy levels.

The third section gets to the central argument of the book regarding the need for research to examine the socio-cultural aspects of climate change. These chapters express the paucity of engagement public policy has had with the social sciences and offers solutions for this. For example, Grundmann, Rhomberg and Stehr's chapter refers specifically to the culture of climate determinism and the politicization of the climate debate as causes of this paucity, whilst Jamison highlights the irony of the social sciences, on one hand, being central in shaping environmental movements and political negotiations, but on the other hand, is not really encouraged by market-driven university agendas. This is an important point that all academics, especially those in senior management roles, need to take heed of. As a global academic community, we have a moral obligation to instil this type of research in universities and not blame the paucity of the social sciences in climate research solely on governments and policy-makers. This is succinctly explored in the chapter by Joshua Forstenzer, who uses John Dewey's democratic ideal of civil society needing to play a more active role in the formulation and engagement of climate change policy. As Forstenzer claims, ‘it's the education, stupid!' Similarly, in his chapter, Bærenholdt calls for a ‘multi-site living’ perspective that utilizes ‘change into practice’. This chapter offers critical insights into how everyday practices and local knowledge can critically build upon the more normalized formal policy approaches to climate change.

The fourth section uses case studies to illustrate barriers to, and the role of events in shaping effective climate change communication. In a case study of Bangladesh, Neverla, Lüthje and Mahmud rightly highlight how issues such as a low literacy rate and using Western media interpretations of climate science undermines effective communication of climate science to the Bangladeshi public. They suggest the formulation of networks between journalists and scientists to learn about one another's norms. The following chapters illustrate how events like movies, mass global public events and direct climate activism can be used to communicate climate discourses to the general public. Pernille Almlund concludes by examining the Danish political agenda for climate change since the highly publicized 15th Conference of the Parties in Copenhagen in 2009. He highlights the paradoxical nature of instilling climate mitigation policies alongside adaptation policies for governments and policy-makers. This brings home the complexities of the task faced by climate researchers in researching climate mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation has always been ostensibly informed by the hard physical sciences, whereas adaptation is more concerned with human dimensions. If adaptation was to be framed as an equally significant policy imperative, then governments would be admitting that anthropogenic climate change was a reality in an era of scientific uncertainty (Schipper, 2006 Schipper, E. L. F. (2006). Conceptual history of adaptation in the UNFCCC process. Review of European Community & International Environmental Law, 15, 82–92. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9388.2006.00501.x[Crossref] [Google Scholar]). This may be a reason why governments have always been more supportive of the hard physical sciences (e.g. climate modelling) in informing policy, creating this era of climate reductionism. The multi-disciplinary research advocated in this book is useful in persuading national governments to collectively redress this policy balance.

To conclude, it may come as a surprise to some readers that the multi-disciplinary approach to researching climate change set out in this book has actually been advocated for 30 years. Just look at the edited work by Chen, Boulding and Schneider in their seminal book, Social science research and climate change: An interdisciplinary appraisal (1983 Chen, R. S., Boulding, E. M., & Schneider, S. H. (Eds.). (1983). Social science research and climate change: An interdisciplinary appraisal. Dordrecht: Reidel.[Crossref] [Google Scholar]). This book was a rather unique take on climate change research at the time, advocating that social and political institutions were integral in limiting the rise in global temperature caused by greenhouse gases. Chen's edited book inspired a multi-disciplinary approach to climate research before the advent of the burgeoning market-based, pro-mitigation, international policy apparatus of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Therefore, Rethinking climate research does not offer multi-disciplinary research anything novel in terms of a step-change in research thinking. However, it does make a significant and excellent contribution to the multi-disciplinary literature on climate change research and I especially urge physical climate scientists to read this book. This could facilitate a more encompassing multi-disciplinary climate research network, which is good news to those of us pushing this research agenda—let us hope government funders and policy-makers also read and more importantly, apply the main message of this book in their own decision-making frameworks. However, I would not hold my breath. Not just yet.