Neville R. Ellis’s scientific contributions

Substantial research exists on attachments people have to places and the phenomena and objects they value. However, insights on how values vary between different locations and across demographics and how place attachment differs between rural and urban areas are more limited. These understandings are needed to design meaningful adaptation strategies for people and communities at risk from climate change. This study examines attachment to place and things people value in eight communities in Western Australia, using a survey with 403 participants. Results showed that residents across the rural communities shared similar values, but that the values of urban communities were differentiated socioeconomically. Contrary to our hypothesis, place attachment was not stronger among the rural compared to the urban sites. The findings point to the importance of incorporating place-based, lived values and needs, particularly from less affluent residents, into inclusive adaptation planning.

A situated and socially engaged science of loss arising from climate change takes people’s lived experiences with risk and harm as its fundamental starting point. It foregrounds what losses occur, where and how, which of these losses matter most to people and why, and whether or not such losses are considered acceptable and potentially reversible. However, obtaining such insight is difficult if the many things people value, across space and time, are intangible, i.e. they cannot and perhaps should not be quantified, and hence are often overlooked and omitted. This is the case, for instance, for the symbolic and affective dimensions of culture and place, such as sense of belonging, personal and collective notions of identity, and ways of knowing and making sense of the world, all of which are already undermined by climate change. Here, we perform the first systematic comparative analysis of people-centered and place-specific experiences with climate-related harm to people’s values that are largely intangible and non-commensurable. We draw upon >100 published case studies from around the world to make visible and concrete what matters most to people and what is at stake in the context of climate-related hazards and impacts. We show that the same threats can produce vastly different outcomes, ranging from reversible damages to irreversible losses and anticipated future risks, across numerous value dimensions, for indigenous and non-indigenous families, communities, and countries at all levels of development. Through this analysis, we also empirically validate dimensions of harm that have been produced and reproduced in the literature, albeit often devoid of distinct substance, lived experiences, and intrinsic significance. We end by discussing ethical implications of the ‘one thousand ways’ to encounter harm and offer recommendations to overcome methodological challenges in advancing a science of loss grounded in place.

’Triple-wins’ has emerged as a powerful rhetorical device for instigating responses to linked climate-development challenges. By promising to deliver synergistic mitigation-adaptation-development outcomes via a single intervention, triple-win logic has proven immensely appealing to policymakers and researchers alike. Although heralded by its proponents as an enabler of transformational change towards desirable low-carbon and climate-resilient futures, emerging critiques suggest focus upon triple-wins detracts attention from pressing social questions pertinent to integrative efforts, including how trade-offs are deliberated, for whom wins and losses accrue, and who decides. Here, we review emerging critiques of triple-win rhetoric within climate-smart agriculture and climate compatible development, and explore its suitability as a device for enabling transformational change. We argue that triple-win rhetoric, as currently conceived, fails to engage with the social complexities inherent to the pursuit of integrated outcomes, as well as the underlying social conditions that perpetuate business-as-usual development. In response, we propose a more dynamic ‘pathways’ approach to triple-wins that foregrounds normative commitments to recognition, rights and justice in the pursuit of desirable climate-resilient futures.