The Problem of Fit: Scenario Planning and Climate ... - SAGE Journals

Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 2014, volume 32, pages 641 – 662

doi:10.1068/c12106

The problem of fit: scenario planning and climate change adaptation in the public sector Lauren Rickards, John Wiseman, Taegen Edwards Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, The University of Melbourne, Southern Annex, Ground Floor, Alice Hoy Building (Blg 162), Monash Road, University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC 3010, Australia; e-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Che Biggs Victorian Eco-Innovation Lab (VEIL), The University of Melbourne, Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, Old Commerce Building, University of Melbourne Victoria, Australia 3010; e-mail: [email protected] Received 24 April 2012; in revised form 25 May 2013; published online 26 June 2014 Abstract. Adapting to climate change is a new responsibility for state and local government. Yet there is little clarity about what is involved, beyond an expectation of acting in a rational, informed manner. This paper presents a study from Victoria, Australia into public servants’ perceptions and experiences of using scenario techniques for adaptation. It suggests that while scenario development is often positive for those involved, utilising scenarios to directly ‘inform’ adaptation decision making is more difficult. It seems that scenarios are a valuable but awkward form of evidence in the contemporary environment of evidence-based adaptation, introducing new substantive knowledge in an unfamiliar form, easily dismissed on credibility, legitimacy, and salience grounds. While scenario thinking is a good fit with climate change adaptation, it clashes with the predictive paradigm underlying the evidence-based decision-making model. This suggests that, for adaptation to better fit the institutional environment, alterations to the latter are needed. Keywords: climate change adaptation, scenario planning, public sector, institutional fit

1 Introduction As climate change impacts begin to manifest and the profound risk of maladaptive responses is recognised, calls for adaptation decisions to be made in an informed, forward-looking, and decisive manner have amplified. Yet, multifaceted uncertainty about the complex changes underway means that the expected source of information about the future—prediction— is no longer (if it has ever been) a reliable guide to what lies ahead (Dessai et al, 2009; Hulme et al, 2009; Quay, 2010; Sarewitz et al, 2000). As an actor purportedly committed to rational evidence-based action and seeking to lead and encourage adaptation, government consequently faces an epistemological and governance predicament. In response to the challenge that climate change poses to the conventional ‘predict-thenact’ planning approach, a growing number of decision makers are turning to the insight offered by futures studies (Lempert et al, 2004; Quay, 2010). The central keystone methodology of futures work is scenario planning: a diverse range of structured techniques and tools designed to encourage decision makers to prepare for more possibilities than that which seems most likely or desirable (Lang and Allen, 2010; Lempert, 2013; Slaughter, 2002; Wilkinson and Eidinow, 2008). In the climate change field, ‘scenario’ is a common but ambiguous term—for some referring to scientific representations of probable future economies, climatic changes and impacts; and to others implying the construction of highly imaginative, participatory, and sometimes normative stories about possible futures.

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L Rickards, J Wiseman, T Edwards, C Biggs

To date many agencies have progressed only slowly in adapting purposefully to climate change (Berrang-Ford et al, 2011; Preston et al, 2011). In developed countries most action taken in the name of adaptation has involved municipal-level planning (Ford et al, 2011). How such planning should proceed, however, is unclear. Scenario planning techniques seem to hold promise, but little is known about the actual use and influence of scenario planning within public policy making (Volkery and Ribeiro, 2009). While scenario exercises may help government institutions to better fit and even improve their changing environment, the extent to which scenario processes themselves ‘fit’ the existing institutional environment is unclear. The value of scenario planning to climate change adaptation decision making can be considered in terms of how useful and useable stakeholders perceive it to be. The utility of knowledge products is often discussed in terms of the influential triad of knowledge criteria for sustainable development first proposed by Cash et al (2003): credibility (whether stakeholders perceive information to be rigorous and truthful); salience (whether they perceive it to be relevant to their needs at the time); and legitimacy (whether they perceive it to be fair and unbiased in their treatment of diverse views and interests). Especially within policy settings characterised by the ‘evidence-based policy’ ideal—such as those in Australia, the UK, and the US—formal information inputs to decision making are required to be both highly defensible and highly pertinent (Head, 2008; 2010a; Mulgan, 2005; Newman, 2011). Given the way scenario planning involves long-term, abstract, and subjective knowledge and can surface deep assumptions and new threats, it can present opportunities and difficulties in such an institutional setting, as this paper describes. We begin by introducing key topics in climate change adaptation and scenario planning. We then present results from a twelve-month project in Victoria, Australia, ‘Scenarios for Climate Adaptation’, which used mixed methods to explore what state and local government personnel perceive to be the aims, benefits, and limitations of scenario techniques for climate change adaptation in their setting. The project helps address the paucity of evaluative scenario literature and responds to calls for assessments of the intended and unintended outcomes of scenario projects (European Environmental Agency, 2009; Garb et al, 2008; Hulme and Dessai, 2008; Lempert, 2013; O’Neill et al, 2008; Wright et al, 2013a). 2 Climate change adaptation Emerging clarity about the necessity of climate change adaptation is tempered by ambiguity about what it can or should involve. Understanding what the problem is, deciding what could and should be done, and acting in an appropriately adaptive manner are not easy tasks, particularly when the stressor includes unprecedented complexity and the risk of ‘massive discontinuous change’ (Winn et al, 2011, page 157). More than a matter of adjusting to shifting climatic factors, climate change adaptation involves addressing nonclimatic impacts (including maladaptive responses), anticipatory as well as reactive actions, and complex normative questions about goals (Moser and Ekstrom, 2010). A key debate about adaptation is the breadth of its remit. While etymologically adaptation means ‘fitting to’ one’s (changing) environment, the extent to which it should also involve tackling the myriad nonclimatic causes of vulnerability and intervening in one’s environment in a favourable way is disputed (Collins and Ison, 2009; Kelly and Adger, 2000; O’Brien et al, 2007). At present, an expansive attitude toward adaptation is discouraged by the dominant climate reductionist approach that focuses attention on the climatic environment and relegates changes within it to the artificially separate activity of mitigation. There is, however, growing discussion about the complex interacting nature of climate change impacts and the need for a ‘transformative’ approach involving significant shifts in thinking and approach, from the

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cultural and institutional level to that of the organisation and individual (eg, Kates et al, 2012; O’Brien, 2012; Pelling, 2011; Rickards and Howden, 2012; Shaw and Theobald, 2011). Even when narrowly conceived as management of climatic impacts, climate change adaptation is not a ‘special issue’ that can be relegated to a group of specialists. As captured in the idea of ‘mainstreaming’ adaptation, it involves all sectors and segments of society, including every type, level, and area of government (Brouwer et al, 2013; Macintosh, 2010; Sietz et al, 2011). Adaptation is especially unavoidable and risky for government, given the way government is likely to be judged and penalised especially harshly for both poor and delayed action. Challenges in generating policy for adaptation include multidimensional needs, goal-specific responses, unpredictable equity and efficiency implications, the potentially perverse influence of existing policies, and the tension between being far-sighted and responsive (Hallegatte, 2009; Hardaker et al, 2009; Head, 2009; 2010b; Lempert and Groves, 2010; Sposito et al, 2010; Swanson et al, 2010). Not only does government need to execute its own delineated tasks, including sound management of public goods and adaptation and improvement of its own structures and capacities, but it also needs to help create an appropriate ‘enabling’ environment for others’ adaptation and, arguably, role-model good practices (Macintosh, 2010). Interest in the role of government in adaptation (eg, Bulkeley and Newell, 2010) is accentuated by what it implies about the role, responsibilities, and context of other parties and how adaptation is conceived. At present, adaptation is predominantly interpreted as a strongly context-specific and local activity (eg, Few et al, 2007; Füssel, 2007; McEvoy et al, 2010). For not only do climatic impacts vary at the local scale, but as a social process adaptation is enacted within unique and ever-changing local contexts, shaped by the values, goals, knowledge, and other resources of stakeholders which are often (but not always) local. At the same time, adaptation is a more-than-local process and experience-based local knowledge on its own may be a misleading guide to the future (Adger et al, 2005; Naess, 2013). The framing of adaptation as decentralised activity is encouraged by the tendency for action to date to have centred on the local scale, and for central governments, at least within the Western context, to have encouraged private citizens and local bodies to take responsibility for adaptation (eg, Berrang-Ford et al, 2011; Carlsson-Kanyama et al, 2013; Dannevig et al, 2012; Ford et al, 2011; Groven et al, 2012; Juhola et al, 2012; Reisinger et al, 2011). In Australia the federal government has cast adaptation as a state and local government concern, producing a number of guidance documents promoting a formal risk management approach and funding a Local Adaptation Pathways Program (Head, 2009; Kennedy et al, 2010; Macintosh, 2010). For the many place-based agencies and groups tasked with managing climate change adaptation, taking on their new adaptation responsibility necessitates huge amounts of learning and work (Carlsson-Kanyama et al, 2013). Adaptation amplifies the challenges they already face by introducing another set of broad and uncertain considerations into already difficult and contested decision-making processes (Reisinger et al, 2011). As a nonmandatory undertaking, climate change adaptation needs to compete with the many other often more pressing issues that local authorities need to deal with (Dannevig et al, 2012; Kennedy et al, 2010). Action on adaptation is also constrained by a general lack of knowledge about or experience in how best to ‘operationalise’ the concept (Matthews, 2012). To help regional and local government prioritise and manage climate change risks in the desired independent and rational manner, many of the higher level institutions doing the delegating have concurrently committed to providing information about the most highprofile (notably, climatic) risks. The provision of information—notably about future climates and impacts—is privileged within the dominant framing of adaptation in many Western

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countries as rational and responsible risk management (Fünfgeld and McEvoy, 2012; 2014; Kennedy et al, 2010). At the international level the focus on information provision is evident in the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to provide authoritative global scientific information about future climates and conditions (Shaw et al, 2009). At the national level it is evident in the proliferation of many nation-based climate science initiatives that create custom-made climate scenarios to facilitate country-specific adaptation action. Scenario planning is one increasingly popular way that these national climate scenarios are then made more ‘useable’ for local actors. For this and other reasons, scenario planning is increasingly discussed as a way to alleviate “the gap between municipal means and responsibilities in adaptation planning” (Baard et al, 2012, page 641). 3 The rise of scenario planning

3.1 Overview of scenario planning

The apparent capacity to anticipate, plan for, and ‘govern’ the future is a central characteristic of liberal democracies (Anderson, 2010). Using techniques of prediction to identify likely futures—usually ‘the most likely’ future—has long been associated with good planning and management practice, as well as psychological comfort (Lempert and Schlesinger, 2000; Sarewitz et al, 2000). But in recognition of the deep uncertainty that increasingly characterises the medium to long-term future, and associated awareness of the complexity of social-ecological systems, the prediction promise is increasingly viewed with some scepticism (Frame, 2008; Wilkinson et al, 2013). In response, scenario techniques have been seized upon for the way they bound but do not deny complexity and uncertainty and seem to offer a way of helping to overcome poor action and inaction (Quay, 2010). While not a panacea, they promise to reduce the ‘decision failures’ that occur when the ‘wrong decision’ is made (eg, one that does not account for the way the future ends up unfolding because of inappropriate assumptions or inactive decision making) (van Drunen et al, 2011). Scenario planning is increasingly being adopted by the public sector for various purposes (Habegger, 2010; Volkery and Ribeiro, 2009). Its potential to enhance boundarycrossing networks, collaboration, and coordination is welcome in light of calls for joined-up, participatory, and network governance, while its perceived ability to improve government’s decision-making capability and facilitate strategic, responsive, effective and efficient policy development aligns with the dominant new public management paradigm.(1) Partly because of its popularity, scenario planning remains a ‘messy’ and ambiguous practice whose effects and effectiveness are poorly understood (Bradfield et al, 2005; Wright et al, 2013b). Similar to climate change adaptation, scenario planning is a diverse, burgeoning, and pragmatic field of practice, reflecting the innumerable local contexts and actors involved (Amer et al, 2013; Chermack, 2005; Keough and Shanahan, 2008; Wilkinson et al, 2013). Scenario advice is consequently a growing area of expertise, and scenario planning professionals can be seen as part of the ‘epistemic community’ that has emerged to facilitate participatory governance (Chilvers, 2008). A particular concern in scenario research and practice is the extent to which the bene fits of scenario planning lie in its differences to or similarities with prediction. The relative value afforded scenarios and predictions speaks to a tension between established and emerging paradigms within futures studies more generally, with the field as a whole shifting towards more qualitative process-oriented approaches. Some commentators, notably those in the ‘probabilistic modified trends’ school of scenarios, appreciate the way scenario planning approximates prediction in the cases of high complexity and medium–long time frames that prediction cannot penetrate. They view scenario planning as an acceptable, (1)

For a recent critical overview of network governance theory see Davies (2012). For an overview of the new public management paradigm see Hood (2005).

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Time Now Possible Plausible Probable

Preferable

Potential

Figure 1. [In colour online.] Conceptual diagram of a scenario funnel depicting the relationship between probable, preferable, plausible, and possible futures (from Voros, 2003).

if unfortunate, compromise. Although the ‘funnel’ of possibilities that scenario techniques produce (figure 1) is a broader and fuzzier picture of the future than that offered by prediction (with scenario processes involving a minimum of two, but usually three to five, alternative scenarios), it is appreciated for helping to cut through the unknown and focusing attention, especially if probabilities are (controversially) attached to possible trajectories (Lempert and Schlesinger, 2000; Ramírez et al, 2013). In this approach—exemplified by ‘scenariobased risk assessment’ (eg, Kirshen et al, 2012)—the usual focus of attention is how to use scenarios to inform a particular strategic decision using empirical, quantitative analysis (Bradfield et al, 2005; Wilkinson et al, 2013). For other commentators, however, the primary purpose of scenarios is to transcend the prediction tunnel and open people’s minds to new and multiple possibilities. Although scenario planning is, like prediction, what Anderson (2010) calls an ‘anticipatory practice’, it can fundamentally differ in its attitude to the future, moving from calculation to imagination (table 1).(2) In this light, ‘scenario thinking’ is about daring to ‘think the unthinkable’ and ‘suspending disbelief’ about the future (Chermack and Lynham, 2002; Curry, 2009; Frittaion et al, 2010; Kahn, 1967; Sarpong and Maclean, 2011). Proponents of recent constructivist paradigms in futures studies criticise most scenario techniques not as too imaginative, but as too conservative. They argue that many scenario processes overemphasise existing trends and underplay the influence of social, cultural, and psychological factors, including scenario developers’ unexamined worldviews (eg, Hideg, 2013; Inayatullah, 2006; Metzger et al, 2010; Slaughter, 2002; 2008; Voros, 2008). In this light, scenario development should be recognised and celebrated as a highly subjective art and a ‘learning machine’, not the poor cousin of prediction (Berkhout et al, 2002; Bradfield et al, 2005; Wilkinson and Eidinow, 2008). In response to the ‘methodological chaos’ that characterises the practice-driven field of scenario planning, numerous academic writers have sought to order the field by grouping different scenario approaches into typologies (Bradfield et al, 2005, page 798; eg, Borjeson et al, 2006; Wilkinson and Eidinow, 2008). A distinction is typically made between descriptive ‘exploratory scenarios’ (which explore ‘what could happen’) and less common ‘normative scenarios’ (which explore ‘what ideally should happen’ (Borjeson et al, 2006). So-called ‘predictive scenarios’ (which explore ‘what is likely to happen’) are closest to the original prediction end of the futures studies spectrum, but are now rejected by most scenario practitioners as not true to the scenario planning ethos of embracing uncertainty. In this paper ‘scenarios’ do not include strictly predictive techniques. (2)

Anderson also discusses ‘performative’ anticipatory practices such as simulation games.

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Table 1. Anticipatory practices (based on Anderson, 2010). Calculating futures

Imagining futures

Ways of making future present

enumerating possible (probable) futures

representing a set of possible (plausible) futures

Evidence

extrapolation based on some form of enumeration

collective tacit and codified knowledge of participants

Acts

counting, inferring, judging

imagining, representing, narrating

Inscription

trend, graph, model

scenario, vision, story

Paradigmatic techniques

prediction, trend analysis, forecasting, data mining

scenario planning, backcasting, envisioning

So how is a suite of scenarios developed within a scenario project? Despite the variety of specific methods, some approximation of the sequence in box 1 is common. A ‘matrix’ model is often used to structure uncertainties and scenarios around two main axes or drivers on which future conditions may differ, producing four quadrants of alternative futures (Berkhout et al, 2002; Bishop et al, 2007; van Vuuren et al, 2012a). The extent to which strategy development (sometimes called ‘scenario use’) is actually part of the scenario planning process is questionable, and the potential further step of evaluating scenario planning impact is highly uncommon (Wright et al, 2013a). While scenarios can consist purely of narrative or numbers, most scenarios involve a mix of quantitative and qualitative, and objective and subjective, inputs and outputs (Amer et al, 2013).(3) As such, they present the difficulty of bridging different epistemological traditions and research standpoints, in addition to different priorities and views on contentious issues (Berkhout and Hertin, 2000; Davies and Sarpong, 2013; Inayatullah, 2002; Lynch et al, 2008; Malone and Rayner, 2001). In this light, the main value of scenario exercises is not to try to produce a quasi-predictive picture of the future, even an open noncommittal one, but to generate a heuristic device for helping diverse stakeholders to identify, deliberate, and explore key assumptions and decisions (Berkhout et al, 2002; Ison et al, 2014). Such a process-oriented approach often aims to motivate learning, find commonalities across different perspectives, come to a shared understanding of challenges, and stimulate collaboration (Berkhout et al, 2002; Gawith et al, 2009; Slaughter, 2002). In contrast, within a more product-oriented perspective, scenario use is of prime interest (O’Neill et al, 2008). Box 1. A general scenario planning process (adapted from Tapinos, 2012). _b (1) Define the scope of the exercise bb (2) Identify and analyse major external uncertainties bbb bb (3) Reduce or cluster the uncertainties (into axes) bb Scenario (4) Develop, enrich, and explore possible scenarios `b planning bb (5) Check for internal consistency and compare bb (6) Select final group of scenarios for further analysis bbb bb (7) Express and report scenarios a (8) Assess the implications of the scenarios Strategy 2 development (9) Develop and select potential strategies

(3)

See also http://scenariosforsustainability.org/index.php

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Irrespective of whether priority is placed on the process or product, scenario exercises often emphasise the social context of issues and involve a range of stakeholders in scenario development (eg, Bryson et al, 2010; Newig and Fritsch, 2009; Ravera et al, 2011; Turnhout et al, 2010). But broad participation can present difficult epistemic, epistemological, and methodological questions, especially given the common assumption that consensus is needed or desirable (Rawluk and Godber, 2011). Deciding, for example, on what data are ‘relevant’ or what possible futures are ‘plausible’ or ‘desirable’ invokes fundamental questions of values and power. Such decisions generally reflect the culture and concerns of the particular professional setting in which scenario planning is carried out. Even when scenario processes are not explicitly normative, they often embed policy goals from the beginning, reflecting what is deemed desirable, politically correct, and/or amenable to change within a particular setting (Kahane, 2012; Korte and Chermack, 2007; O’Brien, 2012). Initial agendas and assumptions may or may not be called into question as part of the scenario development process (Wilkinson et al, 2013). Some practitioners pragmatically or automatically accept the given framing of problems in order to focus the scenario process on producing desired solutions, at least as a first step. Such pragmatism is encouraged by the fact that a known weakness of scenario processes is their weak ability to initiate change in the short term (Wilkinson and Mangalagiu, 2012). Others view the job of scenario thinking as challenging the assumption that existing framings of the situation are innocent, appropriate, or inevitable (eg, Chermack and Lynham, 2002; Ison et al, 2014; Kahane, 2012; Kahn, 1967; Slaughter, 2002). 3.2 Scenario planning for climate change adaptation

In many ways, scenario planning is a logical fit with adaptation, being designed to understand and manage multifaceted long-term threats such as climate change and being applicable to both incremental and transformational visions of the adaptation challenge. In adaptation applications, scenarios are used in two main ways: as a research tool and as a planning tool. In terms of the first, numerous model-based scenarios are used within scientific research on climate change as a means of representing future conditions while acknowledging uncertainty about them.(4) With an emphasis on plausibility and predictive accuracy, scenarios are often used within climate and impacts science as a response to the ‘intrinsic structural limitations’ of long-term predictions for adaptive decision making (Millner, 2012, page 143). They are used to focus analysis, calculate uncertainty ranges, and produce outputs such as crop yield models that seek to provide adaptation decision makers with information that is credible and in a familiar quantitative style (Dessai et al, 2005; Hulme and Dessai, 2008; van Vuuren et al, 2012a; 2012b). Scenarios are also used in adaptation work as a planning tool, which is the focus of this paper. Emphasis is commonly placed on educating stakeholders’ about the risks climate change poses for them and helping them to identify possible and appropriate management responses (Mastrandrea et al, 2010; Moats et al, 2008; Tang and Dessai, 2012). In particular, (4)

Conventionally, scenarios have been generated in climate science work in a simple linear sequence of presumed cause–effect relationships. Beginning at the global scale and encapsulated in the work of the IPCC, alternative socioeconomic pathways (socioeconomic scenarios) are used to inform analysis of possible future levels of greenhouse gas emissions (emissions scenarios) and concentrations (radiative forcing scenarios), which are then used to calculate climatic changes (climate model scenarios) and their major impacts (impact and vulnerability scenarios). More recently, concern that this process is not only too cumbersome and slow but suffers from ‘uncertainties in a breathtaking number of dimensions’ including neglect of ‘crucial possibilities’ (namely, society’s mitigation of and adaptation to climate change) has led to a new approach in which ‘representative concentration pathways’ are used as the starting point and socioeconomic and climate scenarios are produced in tandem and then integrated (Heal and Kriström, 2002, page 34; Moss et al, 2010; Whetton et al, 2012).

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scenario planning helps decision makers make decisions ‘robust’ to future possibilities. Such “robust decision making” is increasingly articulated as a major goal for adaptation (Dessai et al, 2009; Hallegatte, 2009; Lempert, 2013; Lempert and Schlesinger, 2000; Wilby and Dessai, 2010). It represents a significant shift in aim from a narrowly focused optimality sensitive to prediction error, to a broadly focused ‘satisficing’ approach (aimed at a good enough result) less sensitive to uncertainty, prediction error, and worst-case outcomes (Lempert and McKay, 2011; Lempert and Collins, 2007; McInerney et al, 2012; Millner, 2012). While robust decisions are often defined as choices that are relatively independent of future conditions [that is, an option that outperforms all others regardless of scenario (eg, Kirshen et al, 2012), they may instead be about remaining flexible enough to adapt to conditions as they emerge [‘keeping one’s options open’—eg, Gersonius et al (2013)]. In theory, scenario planning facilitates both approaches by: (1) helping to sketch out the future situations that near-term decisions need to be able to accommodate or track; and (2) helping to identify the indicators of a particular scenario unfolding and appropriate responses in a given situation (sometimes referred to as the development of ‘future memory’). This two-pronged advantage is reflected in the idea that scenario planning helps organisations and individuals to be ‘ambidextrous’ (Bodwell and Chermack, 2010; Nosella et al, 2012): both farsighted and responsive, or proactive and reactive (as it is described in climate change adaptation). However, for scenario planning to help develop appropriate emergent as well as deliberate strategies requires that the advanced step of testing possible strategies for robustness across various scenarios is undertaken within the scenario planning process—something that is not always done (Chermack and van der Merwe, 2003). To assist local planning of the sort considered key to adaptation, context-specific scenarios are needed. To achieve this, climate model scenarios are typically downscaled, impact models may be focused on sectors of interest, and multidimensional and often transdisciplinary scenarios are developed by exploring climatic changes in the context of other cross-scale and local factors, including stakeholder knowledge and goals (Carlsen et al, 2012; O’Leary et al, 2011; Shaw et al, 2009). Some scenario processes for adaptation are conducted in a relatively interpretivist, participatory manner in which participant perspectives, narratives, and choices are prioritised as much as expert knowledge and information delivery (eg, Cairns et al, 2013; Rounsevell and Metzger, 2010; Smith et al, 2011). Such an approach reflects the idea that stakeholder participation increases the effectiveness and adoption of appropriate adaptation measures because local knowledge improves the quality of the information used for adaptation decision making, increasing its credibility, salience, and perceived legitimacy (Cash et al, 2003; Lemos et al, 2012; White et al, 2010). But scenario planning is also valued as an opportunity to change people’s knowledge, perceptions, and subsequent decisions. According to Chermack (2004) and van Drunen et al (2011), active participation in scenario development especially enhances learning and application because the sort of knowledge being developed is ‘sticky’ (difficult to transfer between people) and ‘high friction’ (involving gradual learning of judgment and tacit understanding). We turn now to our empirical case study of the perceptions and experiences of policy makers and practitioners involved in using scenario methods to support climate change adaptation to explore these issues in more depth.

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4 The Scenarios for Climate Adaptation project 4.1 Introduction and methods

The aim of the ‘Scenarios for Climate Adaptation’ project was to explore the use of scenario planning to support climate change adaptation within the public sector in Victoria, Australia. It utilised five main methods.(5) First, in April–May 2010 a comprehensive and in-depth survey of those working at the policy–research–practice nexus around climate change adaptation was conducted about their perceptions of and experiences in using scenario planning to support adaptation. A combination of systematic and snowball sampling was used to distribute the survey online, first to known contacts working on climate change adaptation in public agencies and then to any other relevant people they identified. Involving closed and open questions, the survey was closed after four weeks when no further new participants were identified and a hundred comprehensive responses had been obtained. The majority of respondents were from Victoria and worked in state or regional government authorities, with representatives from local and federal government and other institutions. Second, an inventory of scenario-based adaptation projects in Victoria was compiled to understand the scope and pattern of scenario use. Thirty-three detailed Victorian-based cases of past scenario projects were found using the survey and a desktop search of academic and grey literature. Most projects identified took place within or at the behest of a Victorian Government department or agency and focused on a particular region of the state. Cases were categorised according to the scenario approach, and document analysis and/or interviews with participants were used to explore the main lessons arising from them. Third, between April and July 2010 twenty-one semistructured interviews were conducted with key informants from state and local government and the scenario planning and climate change adaptation fields to better understand adaptation needs and scenario planning potential and limitations. Fourth, in October 2010 two half-day workshops were conducted to seek input from a range of stakeholders with experience in climate change adaptation, many of whom had directly applied scenario planning. Attended by approximately sixty people in total, including many of the key informants and survey participants, the first workshop involved senior and middle-ranking public servants and scenario planning professionals (based in consultancies and/or academia), and the second workshop involved local government, regional climate alliances, and NGOs. High-quality discussion resulted about key strengths and weaknesses of using scenario processes for adaptation in the context of various government settings. Fifth, three academic discussion papers were commissioned to provide critical literature-informed perspectives around scenarios and adaptation. Combined with an additional presentation, they were presented at a public seminar in November 2010, generating further useful discussion.(6) 4.2 Findings and discussion

4.2.1 Use of scenarios for climate change adaptation Results indicate that scenario planning is being used extensively and diversely among Victorian policy makers, local governments, and others working on climate change adaptation. It is broadly perceived as a useful tool for managing the uncertainties that longterm climate change presents and for initiating thinking on the unfamiliar issue of adaptation. More specifically, scenario planning is valued as an appropriate alternative to conventional, predictive decision-making tools like cost–benefit analyses that are recognised as imperfect under conditions of deep uncertainty. (5)

For more detail please see the comprehensive project report and scenario planning guide book at

http://www.vcccar.org.au/event/building-common-understanding-scenario-based-strategies-to-informclimate-change-adaptation (6)

These papers and presentations can be viewed at http://www.vcccar.org.au/content/pages/resources-

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Three main approaches to scenario use are apparent (table 2). The first—‘off-theshelf’ scenario approaches—commission or use existing expert-based climate scenarios as an unelaborated input to climate risk management and adaptation planning. Eleven of the thirty-three Victorian projects generally ‘outsourced’ their scenarios in this way because of its perceived credibility, consistency with other agencies, and alignment with process dictated in funding agreements, including the federal government’s Local Adaptation Pathways Program. Table 2. Three main approaches to scenario development used by participants. Approach

Goal

Main source of inputs

Key benefits

Off the shelf

exploratory

external

consistency with others; scientific credibility

Tailored exploration

exploratory

external and internal

context specific; stakeholder engagement

Tailored visioning

normative

external and internal

context specific; goal and action focused

The second method was ‘tailored exploration’: the bottom-up building of contextspecific climate, impact, and adaptation scenarios, usually with the help of scenario planning consultants. Tang and Dessai (2012) argue that tailoring climate information to particular contexts to increase its salience is crucial if national climate projections are to be of ongoing utility. However, Carlsen et al (2012) note that such approaches can be so context specific that they neglect broader drivers and issues. But accuracy may not be a concern. In our project the thirteen projects that used this approach were primarily directed at engaging stakeholders and promoting common understanding. The third approach was ‘tailored visioning’: building and using context-specific scenarios of desirable futures and pathways. Four projects started with an explicit normative goal (eg, ‘a sustainable, carbon-neutral community by 2050’) and used backcasting to work through possible ways of achieving it. Five others evolved from exploratory to normative processes as attention became more focused on preferable futures and stimulating positive action, potentially reflecting Kaljonen et al’s (2012) finding that scenario participants view scenarios “as something to long for or fear, not a tool with which to explore neutral futures” (page 79). Both process-oriented and product-oriented objectives were rated highly by respondents. While community engagement and capacity building were the most common motivations for existing projects, particularly among ‘tailored’ approaches, at least half of the projects were also or instead driven by the desire to directly inform specific adaptation decisions. Most survey respondents (58/78) considered ‘informing decision making’ to be a core purpose of scenario processes in general.(7) 4.2.2 Strengths and weaknesses of using scenario-based strategies for adaptation Participants were generally highly satisfied with their experiences of scenario planning in practice. Perhaps indicating some survey bias,(8) 93% of survey respondents with scenario experience (n = 52) either totally or partly agreed that the scenario development processes they had been involved in had been valuable. The reasons given were diverse, with knowledge integration, awareness raising, and developing a shared understanding of risks the most commonly perceived benefits (figure 2). (7)

This statement is a synthesis of descriptive responses to an open-ended survey question on the topic. As participation in the survey was voluntary, those more positively inclined toward scenario processes may be overrepresented in the sample.

(8)

Not valuable

Unsure

0

10

20

30

40

60 Frequency (%)

50

70

80

90

100

Figure 2. Perceived value of scenario-based strategies for different climate change adaptation goals (based on closed-ended survey questions; n = 52).

Valuable

Implementing particular adaptation actions

Making decisions about which policy and investment options to enact

Checking organisational preparedness to meet future climate change adaptation challenges

Planning for particular adaptation actions

Informing policy and investment option

Developing a shared perspective on preferred adaptation pathways

Integrating diverse sources of evidence, knowledge, and opinion about the future

Exploring the extent to which assumptions about the future are shared

Questioning assumptions about the future

Developing a shared understanding of future risks

Raising awareness of potential climate change adaptation options

Raising awareness of potential climate change trends and impacts

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Survey respondents identified a range of challenges with scenario practices (figure 3). Many found scenario development to be hampered by a lack of resources, in keeping with other findings that the resources required for successful scenario projects, including time, are often underestimated (eg, Gawith et al, 2009; Ravera et al, 2011; Shaw et al, 2009). Poor linkage between outcomes of the project and decision making Inadequate resources to run the project in general Difficulty integrating forms of knowledge or contributions from different fields or disciplines Lack of information about how best to use scenarios Insufficient data or evidence to base scenarios on Lack of high-level organisational support for the project Inadequate knowledge about how to develop or source scenarios Lack of clarity about how scenario-based strategies contribute to project aims 0 Not a significant problem

10

20

30

50 40 Frequency (%)

Significant problem

60

70

80

Unsure

Figure 3. Perceived significance of different potential problems with scenario-based strategies for climate change adaptation (based on closed-ended survey questions; n = 52).

A time-consuming process specifically mentioned by survey respondents and other research participants was the need for those involved in the scenario development process (including the scenario planning professional) to get to know each other and develop mutual understanding and a trusting working relationship. As found by others (eg, Burt and van der Heijden, 2003; Ravera et al, 2011), this proved to be an ongoing challenge in some projects, given the diversity of actors and contentious issues involved. Also time-consuming are the cognitive challenges that scenarios pose. Three were especially highlighted by research participants. First is the difficulty of combining different forms of knowledge, even if box 1 indicates that in many cases this was eventually achieved successfully. As Lynch et al (2008) report about other knowledge production initiatives for climate change adaptation, the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary character of scenarios mean that some people struggle to understand others’ meanings. Of particular difficulty for some participants was interweaving positivist scientific information with interpretivist social science and participants’ personal knowledge. Second is the challenge of thinking longterm and systemically, which climate change especially requires (Ison, 2010). Numerous participants indicated that their scenario project groups had difficulty with this aspect of scenario development. Nevertheless, many also noted that participating in the process helped them to develop such skills, underlining the potential value of scenarios as a learning tool highlighted by Hulme and Dessai (2008). Third is the challenge of thinking imaginatively. An inherent conservatism reportedly constrained some scenario processes, supporting Shearer’s (2005) assertion that people have difficulty thinking of the future as little more than extensions of the present. One experienced scenario practitioner reported that the biggest difficulty he

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faces is getting people to think “outside the box” and consider new possibilities.(9) Illustrating the narrowness of view that leads to a form of ‘decision failure’, a public servant noted that, after he and colleagues had finished developing scenarios for their organisation’s scenario project, “reality intervened, showing our worst imagination wasn’t as bad as reality”. Far more common than difficulties with scenario development were problems with scenario use. In keeping with others’ results (eg, O’Brien and Meadows, 2013), scenario projects were reported to have a weak influence on subsequent adaptation decision making. To the extent that the value of scenario planning is judged by its impact on decision making, this represents a serious shortcoming. Feedback from participants suggests that scenario planning can struggle to explicitly inform adaptation decision making within the evidence-based policy environment of the public sector for a range of interrelated ‘practical’ and strategic reasons (table 3). The latter includes the face that, as one respondent commented, scenario Table 3. Interrelated reasons scenario planning can struggle to inform adaptation decision making in an evidence-based policy environment. ‘Practical’ difficulties in implementation Lack of know-how lack of clarity about how to work with the breadth and complexity of results, or resources especially with future scenarios very different to present; difficulty understanding or agreeing on the implications of long-term scenarios for near-term decisions; lack of capacity or time to systematically embed results into strategy or decision making Lack of influence

difficulty communicating the findings and their significance to those not involved in the scenario development process; lack of organisational champion(s) to continue fostering interest in the process once initial scenario development is complete; failure to gain the ‘buy-in’ of key decision makers (often uninvolved with the scenario development) to implement the findings; lack of immediate opportunity to implement strategic change within existing planning cycles and organisational requirements

Strategic neglect due to being a poor form or unwanted source of evidence Credibility concerns

Salience concerns

Legitimacy concerns Concerns about the substantive content (9)

questions about the rigour of scenario planning methodology in general; concern that the specific scenario planning results are not valid or robust enough (eg, certain, accurate, replicable, quantified) to withstand the criticism of climate sceptics and others, and therefore cannot serve as evidence on important decisions; low perceived authority and independence of scenario planning practitioners and scenario development participants questions about the organisations’ need for scenario planning; poor perceived timeliness of climate change adaptation issues relative to other pressing concerns given the long time frames of scenarios; lack of perceived control over broad scale issues by specific jurisdictions; perceived irrelevance of general messages to technical specialists perception of biases within the scenario development group; concern that full range of stakeholder needs not considered; concern that stakeholders not involved in the scenario development will not accept the findings scenario findings present politically ‘dangerous’ and unwanted knowledge such as unwelcome messages about future and current risks or vulnerabilities associated with business as usual

A recent empirical study of professional futurists’ practices found that they too are susceptible to the ‘siren of historical determinism’ despite their ambitions to create scenarios representing ‘futuristic difference’(see van’t Klooster and van Asselt, 2011).

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techniques can be viewed as ‘subversive’. Together, these reasons represent weaknesses in how useable and useful scenario planning results are perceived to be when assessed against expected outcomes or as evidence to justify contentious decisions of the sort climate change adaptation may require (eg, a change in planning zones, a reprioritisation of assets, an internal organisational restructure). 5 Conclusions At many levels scenario planning is a good fit to the climate change adaptation problem, providing a way of bringing diverse groups together to think through the complexities, uncertainties, and epistemological challenges involved and mirroring adaptation’s spectrum of incremental to transformational approaches. As a practice, scenario development provides a broad array of benefits, from simple awareness-raising about the reality of climate change to deeper reflection upon the ambition, boundaries, and implications of the climate change adaptation project. But, given the decision-making responsibilities of government and the imperative to start acting on adaptation, scenario planning is generally not assessed against the development phase alone. Rather in the adaptation space at least, it is also and perhaps primarily assessed as an input to decision making, given the framing of climate change adaptation as a form of rational evidence-based risk management. It is here that scenario planning sags under the weight of expectations upon it. As others have also observed, there often seems to be a disconnect between the anticipation that scenario planning will ‘inform’—that is, provide an evidence base for—decision making in the near term, and the realisation that the process has had limited discernible impact on subsequent decisions. Wright et al (2013a) even conclude that the term ‘scenario planning’ is a misnomer and the more modest terms ‘scenario methods’ or ‘scenario thinking’ should be used instead. One reason they provide for why scenario methods only weakly support planning is organisations’ typical focus on external change at the expense of internal change. In scenario planning, and in general, groups tend to envisage their organisation—such as a local government—as a relatively stable unit amidst external flux. Such a vision is in keeping with the dominant conservative framing of adaptation to climate change as a matter of incremental adjustment to preserve core identities, structures, and functions (Davoudi, 2012; Felli and Castree, 2012). However, neglecting organisational and institutional change as both an influence on and expression of climate change adaptation is highly restrictive, and may be particularly inappropriate in the public sector where internal upheaval is common and arguably required in the face of climate change. The ‘information useability gap’ is common to many policy-oriented knowledge production processes, including the production and use of climate information in general (Lemos et al, 2012). As an ever greater array of users make demands upon them, scenario planners and other knowledge producers need to continually review and improve the value of their processes and products. At the same time, the useability gap cannot be fully erased from the governance landscape. It reflects inherent tensions between the credibility, salience, and legitimacy of knowledge products and processes, and the subjective and dynamic ways in which these competing ideas are perceived (Cash et al, 2003; Crane et al, 2010). The strong focus upon such criteria, notably those focused on ‘relevance’, highlights the rising dominance of a user-oriented culture in contemporary knowledge production (Jasanoff, 2004; Nowotny et al, 2003). While the relevance ideal is welcome for many reasons, including focusing research attention on pressing societal issues such as climate change, the status quo can be unhelpfully reinforced when knowledge users evaluate—and thus reject—the value of new knowledge through the lens of their current practices and priorities. The failure of scenario planning to penetrate organisational decision making may actually serve the important purpose of illuminating epistemological and political barriers to adaptation that arise out

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of outdated expectations about the form, content, and purpose of appropriate evidence for decision making. As others have noted, the dominant interpretation of research relevance is of units of information that directly inform a specific decision. This overlooks the often acute relevance of knowledge that has a more indirect ‘enlightening’ effect, transcending the intended decision target to reframe the questions being asked (Owens et al, 2006; Petts et al, 2008; Weiss, 1977). The generative potential of scenarios, including their ability to open up an institution and situation for critical questioning, is one of the reasons some people are suspicious of them (Burt and van der Heijden, 2003). Even when applied to adaptation planning as a poor cousin of prediction, the more radical possibilities of scenario thinking—and thus adaptation—keep threatening to emerge, holding the potential to cast the present as well as the future in a new light. Combined with the fact that the agency and innovativeness of knowledge ‘users’ means that it is difficult to ever predict the effects of ‘applying’ knowledge, even prediction-based knowledge such as climate forecasts (Crane et al, 2010), predicting the effect of ‘applying’ scenarios is especially difficult. In this sense, scenarios are an especially poor fit with the evidence-based decision-making ideal. As Fenwick (2012) notes, “evidence-based knowledge is not about adapting with emerging complexity, but about prediction and control” (page 157). This suggests that the acknowledgement of complexity and uncertainty that underpins the rise of climate change adaptation and the adoption of scenario practices over prediction also demands that we rethink the adequacy and feasibility of the linear cause-and-effect thinking that underpins the dominant ‘theory of change’ linking knowledge production to predetermined decisions and desired ontological effects in a linear and predictable fashion. If we are to take complexity and uncertainty seriously, as ‘new environmental governance’ requires we do (O’Neill et al, 2013), perhaps we need to adopt a scenario mentality not only about future conditions but also about the effects of scenario processes on adaptation decisions, and of adaptation efforts on adaptation outcomes. In other words, perhaps scenario thinking for adaptation requires that we rethink rationalistic assumptions within government and as such reframe adaptation as a matter of altering as much as ‘fitting to’ ones (institutional as well as physical) environment. As others have asserted, there is a real risk that existing structural and political contexts are constraining the development and use of novel adaptation strategies—of the sort that scenario techniques exemplify and foster (Charlesworth and Okereke, 2010; Lorenzoni et al, 2007; Manuel-Navarrete, 2010; Pidgeon and Butler, 2009). Of course, for government the notion of giving up ‘the pretence of control’ is sharply constrained by the fact that they remain, politically and legally, ‘in control’. They are therefore understandably averse to the sort of risks that scenario techniques represent as well as reveal. Ultimately, however, the risky new practice of scenario thinking may become a vital characteristic of good adaptation. If so, what is required is a ‘triple manoeuvre’ in which institutions are adapted to make way for the new knowledge content, the new form of knowledge, and new knowledge purpose that scenario thinking ushers in. Acknowledgements. We would like to sincerely thank all of the participants in the ‘Scenarios for Climate Adaptation’ project, the members of the project steering committee (Hartmut Fünfgeld, Darryn McEvoy, Penny Whetton, Roger Jones, Ray Ison, and Barry Warwick), the Victorian Centre for Climate Change Adaptation Research, and the journal editors and referees.

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