Irene Lorenzoni

University of East Anglia | UEA · School of Environmental Sciences

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has become a hugely influential institution. It is the authoritative voice on the science on climate change, and an exemplar of an intergovernmental science-policy interface. This book introduces the IPCC as an institution, covering its origins, history, processes, participants, products, and inf...

Adaptation at actively receding coastal areas requires swift and long-term solutions that build resilience for both people and the environment. Nature-based solutions are increasingly being promoted over hard defences, but there is a lack of empirical research on the effectiveness of novel approaches, including those deployed at different scales. S...

Despite the recent proliferation of national climate change advisory bodies, very little is known about what advice they provide, to whom, and when. To address these gaps in the literature, this article systematically analyses all 700 of the recommendations made by the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) in the period 2009–20. The CCC is one of the o...

Jellyfish bloom events in the Northeast Atlantic (NEA) are perceived to be increasing, based on a rise in reports of their interactions with human activities, including coastal recreation. However, few studies have assessed the potential impact of bloom events on coastal recreation in the NEA. This article reports findings of a questionnaire carrie...

Adopting public policies to deliver the ambitious long-term goals of the Paris Agreement will require significant societal commitment. That commitment will eventually emerge from the interaction between policies, publics and politicians. This article has two main aims. First, it reviews the existing literatures on these three to identify salient re...

Deep, broad, and rapid society‐wide changes are urgently required to limit global temperature rise in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Since 2005, academics and policy makers have increasingly referred to such changes as transformations. This recent uptake and rapid diffusion of transformation‐related concepts in research on climate chan...

Greenhouse gas removal (GGR) approaches are considered essential in several projections to meet the climate mitigation ambition of the Paris Agreement. Biomass Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) and afforestation are included extensively in mitigation scenarios but there are concerns about the feasibility of these approaches. This was e...

Creating scientifically rigorous and user-friendly data visualisations can play a critical role in making complex information more accessible to wider audiences and supporting informed decision-making. ‘Co-design’ encapsulates a way of approaching data visualisation that ensures a deep and shared understanding between those creating the visuals (e....

There is increasing focus on the frequency of jellyfish blooms in the Northeast Atlantic because of negative interactions with humans. However, uncertainty exists as to whether perceptions of increasing bloom frequencies reflect reality due to limitations within long-term population trend data. This study, therefore, developed and applied a semi-qu...

There is increasing focus on the frequency of jellyfish blooms in the Northeast Atlantic because of negative interactions with humans. However, uncertainty exists as to whether perceptions of increasing bloom frequencies reflect reality due to limitations within long-term population trend data. This study, therefore, developed and applied a semi-qu...

The idea of building an economy which supports sustainable development without degrading the environment has been widely debated and broadly embraced by politicians, civil servants, the media, academics and the public alike for several decades. This book explores the measures being trialled at various levels of governance in the European region to...

Accounting guidelines exist for the recording of carbon flows in terrestrial and coastal ecosystems. Shelf sea sediments, while considered an important carbon store, have yet to receive comparable scrutiny. Here, we explore whether effective management of carbon stocks accumulating in shelf seas could contribute towards a nation's greenhouse gas em...

Greenhouse gas removal technologies and practices are essential to bring emissions to net zero and limit global warming to 1.5 °C. To achieve this, the majority of integrated assessment models (IAMs), that generate future emissions scenarios and inform the international policy process, use large-scale afforestation and biomass energy with carbon ca...

Prospective approaches for large‐scale greenhouse gas removal (GGR) are now central to the post‐2020 international commitment to pursue efforts to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5°C. However, the feasibility of large‐scale GGR has been repeatedly questioned. Most systematic analyses focus only on the physical, technical, and economic ch...

This article provides an overview of the approach taken by the Marine Knowledge Exchange Network (M-KEN) and an assessment of its activities in valorizing and generating impact from research. M-KEN was formed in 2014 in response to a call for projects to accelerate impact generated from environmental research in the United Kingdom (UK). M-KEN was u...

Scientific figures, i.e. visuals such as graphs and diagrams, are an important component of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that support communication and policy-making. It is therefore imperative that figures are robust representations of the science and are accessible to target audiences. We interviewed IPCC authors (n =...

Analyzing the politics and policy implications in Brazil of attributing extreme weather events to climate change, we argue for greater place-based sensitivity in recommendations for how to frame extreme weather events relative to climate change. Identifying geographical limits of current recommendations to emphasize the climate role in such events,...

The calamitous consequences of 2017 Hurricane Maria for the Caribbean island of Dominica highlighted the acute and increasing susceptibility of the region to disasters. Despite increasing international attention to disaster risk reduction, recovery from hazard events can be especially lengthy and difficult for small island developing states. In thi...

This paper explores place disruption, where transformative adaptation was proposed for flood risk management, by examining: a) the relationships between place attachment, place-related symbolic meanings, place-protective interpretative responses and attitudinal responses, and b) evaluation of governance processes. Questionnaires were administered t...

Integrated water resources management (IWRM) assumes coherence between cognate aspects of water governance at the river basin scale, for example water quality, energy production and agriculture objectives. But critics argue that IWRM is often less ‘integrated’ in practice, raising concerns over inter-sectoral coherence between implementing institut...

Role playing is increasingly used in European Studies and political science more generally to foster students understanding of social science theories. Yet in most cases, role playing is only done by students. Not so in Theoretical Theatre, a teaching innovation which puts the onus on teachers to act. In our performances, teachers embody competing...

Over the past few decades, substantial funding has been directed toward improving scientific understanding and management of impacts of climate change in the marine environment. Following concerns that the key messages from these studies were not reaching the public, a comprehensive opinion poll of 10,000 European citizens in 10 countries was condu...

Barriers to climate change adaptation have received increased attention in recent years as researchers and policymakers attempt to understand their complex and interdependent nature and identify strategies for overcoming them. To date however, there is a paucity of research on barriers to transformative adaptation. Using two case studies of flood r...

Visualization of climate data plays an integral role in the communication of climate change findings to both expert and non-expert audiences. The cognitive and psychological sciences can provide valuable insights into how to improve visualization of climate data based on knowledge of how the human brain processes visual and linguistic information....

Structural causes of vulnerability to hazards are well established in geographical research. But what facilitates individual adaptive behavior? How does the performance of government intervention affect such behavior? Drawing on political economy, environmental psychology, and climate justice perspectives, we explore how perceived fairness of respo...

The governance of water management is undergoing significant changes worldwide, with an ongoing reallocation of tasks occurring from traditional state-led centralised agency approaches towards more collaborative forms of governance. This chapter first provides an historical overview of flood management in England since the Middle Ages, to show how...

The combination of high tides, strong winds and low pressure between the 5th and 7th of December 2013 caused a destructive storm surge along the east UK coastline. Along parts of the North Norfolk coast this tidal surge reached higher levels than the devastating surge caused by the 1953 storm. Loss of life due to flooding was avoided due to improve...

Background Older adults are considered a vulnerable group to the risks and impacts of climate change. Health inequalities are strongly associated with increased extreme temperatures morbidity and mortality rates among older adults. This study investigates the impact of health inequalities on the susceptibility (i.e. vulnerability), ability to act (...

Background A link between access and availability of different types of assets (i.e. human, physical, social) and impacts of extreme temperatures on human health is deemed to exist. Despite this, limited knowledge is available on the effect such assets have on vulnerability, resilience and adaptation. This study aimed to understand the role assets...

This book presents a new perspective on adaptation to climate change. It considers climate change as more than a problem that can be addressed solely through technical expertise. Instead, it approaches climate change as an adaptive challenge that is fundamentally linked to beliefs, values and worldviews, as well as to power, politics, identities an...

Stakeholder participation in environmental management has become widespread globally while the normative benefits of multi-stakeholder processes in governing natural resources are promoted by academics and policy makers. As projections indicate more frequent and intense flood events with future climate change, this article examines one stakeholder...

Over the past two decades, scholars and practitioners across the social sciences, policy and beyond have proposed, trialled and developed a wide range of theoretical and practical approaches designed to bring about changes in behaviors and lifestyles that contribute to climate change. With the exception of the establishment of a small number of ico...

This report summarises the key findings of research carried out by the University of Exeter and the University of East Anglia during 2014. The research aimed to assess the degree to which the Regional Flood and Coastal Committees (RFCC) provide a collaborative approach to flood management at local level through the involvement of local actors. It a...

Research was carried out in 2014 by the universities of Exeter and East Anglia to identify the degree to which the Regional Flood and Coastal Committees provide a collaborative approach to flood and coastal management at local level through the involvement of local actors. Findings of the research show that generally, actors were supportive of the...

The combination of high tides, strong winds and low pressure between the 5th and 7th of December 2013 caused a devastating storm surge that reached the North Norfolk coast (fig. 1a). Tides along parts of the North Norfolk coast reached higher levels than the devastating floods of 1953. Natural and man made sea defences were breached (fig. 1c, 2a) a...

Frequent claims that publics ‘misunderstand’ science ignore the contested definition of scientific uncertainty itself. Scientific uncertainty means different things in the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities, while public controversies show that interpretations of scientific uncertainty have different implications for policy and de...

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Climate change impacts on marine environments have been somewhat neglected in climate change research, particularly with regard to their social dimensions and implications. This paper contributes to addressing this gap through presenting a UK focused mixed-method study of how publics frame, understand and respond to marine climate change-related is...

Significance We report the results of a 10,106-person pan-European survey of public awareness, concerns, and priorities about marine anthropogenic impacts as a way to inform both science and policy initiatives in achieving marine sustainability. Results enable scientists and policymakers to understand how the public relates to the marine environmen...

The processes that lead to radical institutional change in environmental governance have been theorised from various different perspectives. Six years ago an article published in Global Environmental Change argued for a more systematic evaluation of the potential and utility of complementing Kingdon's Streams Model with other policy-making explanat...

Global governance entails normative and practical judgements over the appropriate level of action in response to complex, cross scale problems. In this respect, the federal principle of subsidiarity (Jordan and Jeppesen 2000; Benson and Jordan 2008a, 2011a, 2014a,b) could provide an effective 'scaling device' in determining task allocation between...

The need to understand the scope for comparative lesson-drawing on national-level climate mitigation policy has acquired added significance due to the current impasse in international-level governance. Greater policy learning or lesson-drawing among peers at the national level could, to an extent, foster meaningful developments by overcoming genera...

Risks from extreme weather events are mediated through state, civil society and individual action. We propose evolving social contracts as a primary mechanism by which adaptation to climate change proceeds. We use a natural experiment of policy and social contexts of the UK and Ireland affected by the same meteorological event and resultant floodin...

Climate change is an issue with fundamental implications for societies and individuals. These implications range from our everyday choices about resource use and lifestyles, through how we adjust to an unprecedented rate of environmental change, to our role in debating and enacting accompanying social transitions. This article outlines the various...

"Post-normal science" (PNS) has received much attention in recent years, but like many iconic concepts, it has attracted differing conceptualizations, applications, and implications, ranging from being a "cure-all" for democratic deficit to the key to achieving more sustainable futures. This editorial article introduces a Special Issue that takes s...

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Recently, in the United Kingdom, two issues have dominated the energy policy agenda: effective climate change mitigation and energy security. Whilst evolving government policy has led to government support for new build nuclear power as part of the nation's future energy mix, limited attention has been devoted to examining how arguments were constr...

Heat waves and cold spells pose ongoing seasonal risks to the health and well-being of vulnerable individuals. Current attempts to address these risks in the UK are implemented through fuel-poverty strategies and heat-wave planning. This paper examines evidence from the UK on whether heat waves and cold spells are addressed differently by public po...

Past research has documented high levels of public concern for risks relating to nuclear power, with opposition to nuclear energy particularly being linked with general environmental concern. However recent UK energy policy, and other debates worldwide, has led to a repositioning of nuclear power as a 'low carbon' electricity source with potential...

In this article, we explore the institutional negotiation of public engagement in matters of science and technology. We take the example of the Science in Society dialogue program initiated by the UK's Royal Society, but set this case within the wider experience of the public engagement activities of a range of charities, corporations, governmental...

For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

It has been claimed that high social capital contributes to both positive public health outcomes and to climate change adaptation. Strong social networks have been said to support individuals and collective initiatives of adaptation and enhance resilience. As a result, there is an expectation that social capital could reduce vulnerability to risks...

Cross-cultural studies are particularly relevant in the context of climate change, given its pervasive character and the growing demand for climate change mitigation at both global and local levels. This paper reports on find-ings from comparative cross-cultural mixed-methods research eliciting per-ceptions of the future among citizens in Norwich (...

Attempts by researchers and policy-makers to address the ‘wicked’ issues which pervade environmental policy usually revolve around attempting – or recommending – both more participatory and transparent, and more systematic and evidence-based, policy-making. Post-normal science (PNS), with its ‘extended peer community’, has emerged as one approach,...

The idea of climate has both statistical and social foundations. Both of these dimensions of climate change over time: climate, as defined by meteorological statistics, changes for both natural and anthropogenic reasons; and our expectations of future climate also change, as cultures, societies and knowledge evolves. This paper explores the interac...

Most projections of climate change suggest an increased frequency of heatwaves in England over coming decades; older people are at particular risk. This could result in substantial mortality and morbidity. To determine elderly people's knowledge and perceptions of heat-related risks to health, and of protective behaviours. Semi-structured interview...

Adapting to climate change is a critical problem facing humanity. This involves reconsidering our lifestyles, and is linked to our actions as individuals, societies and governments. This book presents top science and social science research on whether the world can adapt to climate change. Written by experts, both academics and practitioners, it ex...

There is a considerable difference between the statement of the IPCC (‘high risk of extinction’) and that from the expert survey participants (‘median expert judgement of 28% decline in total population’). They are not directly comparable, however, partly because the sea-ice scenarios on which they are based are different. The IPCC statement assume...

Since 1997, successive Labour Governments have prioritised action on climate change. The United Kingdom is commonly perceived to be an international leader in terms of its global diplomatic efforts and, to a lesser extent, its domestic policy response. However, the UK's carbon dioxide emissions from the transport and housing sectors are increasing....

In the past decade, human influence on the climate through increased use of fossil fuels has become widely acknowledged as one of the most pressing issues for the global community. For the United Kingdom, we suggest that these concerns have increasingly become manifest in a new strand of political debate around energy policy, which reframes nuclear...

While there is a recognised need to adapt to changing climatic conditions, there is an emerging discourse of limits to such adaptation. Limits are traditionally analysed as a set of immutable thresholds in biological, economic or technological parameters. This paper contends that limits to adaptation are endogenous to society and hence contingent o...

The UK is witnessing a new line in political debate around new nuclear energy generation as one potential feature of future energy policy, specifically for contributing to climate change mitigation alongside energy security. Little is known about how ordinary citizens might be responding to this reframing. This paper reports the results from a majo...

Prior to the election of New Labour in 1997, the previous Conservative administration began a series of policy initiatives that inadvertently contributed to major reductions in UK greenhouse gas emissions. The then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was persuaded in 1988 that climate change posed dangers to both national security and the economy, and...

Precautionary Politics. Principle and Practice in Confronting Environmental Risk BY WHITESIDEKERRY H. xiii + 182 pp., 23 × 15 × 1 cm, ISBN 978 0 262 73179 9 paperback, GB£ 12.95, Cambridge, MA, USA: The MIT Press, 2006 - Volume 34 Issue 3 - IRENE LORENZONI

This paper reports on the barriers that members of the UK public perceive to engaging with climate change. It draws upon three mixed-method studies, with an emphasis on the qualitative data which offer an in-depth insight into how people make sense of climate change. The paper defines engagement as an individual's state, comprising three elements:...

Climate change is fuelling a significant renaissance in the national environmental movement in the UK. The broad aim of this article is better to understand the extent to which the 2006 Stern Review on climate change marked a decisive turning point in the battle against climate change or just another missed opportunity. Labelled as the most compreh...

It has long been acknowledged that understandings of risk are influenced by external or ‘objective’ assessments, and by internal or ‘subjective’ value judgements. In-depth research has been undertaken on how lay people perceive climate change and related risks, whereas work on expert opinions is more limited. This paper reports on 22 ‘expert’ inter...

Virtually intractable matters characterized by uncertainty over consequences, diverse and multiple engaged interests, conflicting knowledge claims, and high stakes, call for post-normal policy responses. This paper explores how two such responses have been implemented in the UK through the management of specific aspects of anthropogenic climate cha...

To effectively mitigate climate change in the long-term, limiting carbon dioxide emissions at the individual level has been proposed. Known as personal carbon allowances, these would be decreased year-on-year. Trading in personal carbon allowances would be encouraged, as a means to effectively and equitably reduce emissions overall. This conceptual...

If uncontrolled, human influences on the climate system may generate changes that will endanger various aspects of life on Earth. The precise implications of the scientific claims about climate change, and the extent to which they pose dangers to various populations, are becoming intensely debated at many levels in relation to policy. How `danger'...

Climate change poses significant risks to societies worldwide, yet governmental responses differ greatly on either side of the North Atlantic. Risk perception studies have shown that citizens in the United States and Great Britain have similar risk perceptions of climate change: it is considered a distant threat, of limited personal importance. Eng...

The book represents the results of the cCASHh study that was carried out in Europe (2001-2004), co-ordinated by WHO and supported by EU Programmes. The flood events in 2002 and the heat wave of August 2003 in Europe had given evidence in a rather drastic way of our vulnerability and our non preparedness. The project has produced very important res...

The notion of "dangerous climate change" constitutes an important development of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. It persists, however, as an ambiguous expression, sustained by multiple definitions of danger. It also implicitly contains the question of how to respond to the complex and multi-disciplinary risk issues t...