Conflict management in climate transitions

Climate research has emphasized the importance of creating synergies and managing trade-offs in climate actions to enable transformative change.

According to the latest IPCC report (AR6), maximizing synergies and minimizing trade-offs are key to accelerating climate action. Previous research on trade-offs, reflected in the IPCC assessment, is focusing on mapping.

This work is an important start but not helpful for an in-depth understanding of the conflicts over trade-offs and how they can be better managed.

The point of departure for this project is to recognize the interrelatedness between trade-offs and the conflicts that may arise from them. Theoretically, we draw on and further develop STS controversy studies. In this field conflicts are understood as resources and not as something to hide, deny, or avoid.

Two key questions however remain under-explored.

These are about i) the tools actors use for stabilising and managing conflicts, such as document work and writing strategies, and ii) the quality of conflict management (what might constitute good management).Empirically, we will investigate how responsible actors – government and government authorities –in Sweden manage conflicts concerning three climate mitigation options in the field of electrification: wind energy, nuclear power and electric vehicles.Impact-wise, our ambition is to make our theoretical framework of conflict management useful for both scholars and practitioners when analysing and managing trade-offs.