Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Perspective
  • Published:

Radical interventions for climate-impacted systems

Nature Climate Change volume 12, pages 1100–1106 (2022)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Standard solutions to the threat of >1.5 °C global average warming are not ambitious enough to prevent large-scale irreversible loss. Meaningful climate action requires interventions that are preventative, effective and systemic—interventions that are radical rather than conventional. New forms of radical intervention are already emerging, but they risk being waylaid by rhetorical or misleading claims. Here, to encourage a more informed debate, we present a typology of radical intervention based on recent studies of resilience, transition and transformation. The typology, which is intended to be provocative, questions the extent that different interventions can disrupt the status quo to address the root drivers of climate change.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: System effects of common modes of climate intervention.
Fig. 2: Different types of radical climate intervention.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. IPCC Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability (eds Pörtner, H.-O. et al.) (Univ. Cambridge, 2022).

  2. United Nations Environment Programme. Adaptation Gap Report 2020 (UNEP, 2021).

  3. Lamb, W. F. et al. Discourses of climate delay. Glob. Sustain. 3, E17 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. McHugh, L. H., Lemos, M. C. & Morrison, T. H. Risk? Crisis? Emergency? Implications of the new climate emergency framing for governance and policy. Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change 12, e736 (2021).

  5. Nohrstedt, D., Mazzoleni, M., Parker, C. F. & Di Baldassarre, G. Exposure to natural hazard events unassociated with policy change for improved disaster risk reduction. Nat. Commun. 12, 193 (2021).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Abson, D. J. et al. Leverage points for sustainability transformation. Ambio 46, 30–39 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Buscher, B. & Fletcher, R. The Conservation Revolution: Radical Ideas for Saving Nature Beyond the Anthropocene (Verso, 2020).

  8. Geist, H. J. & Lambin, E. F. Proximate causes and underlying driving forces of tropical deforestation. BioScience 52, 143–150 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Meadows, D. Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System (Sustainability Institute, 1999).

  10. Feola, G., Koretskaya, O. & Moore, D. (Un) making in sustainability transformation beyond capitalism. Glob. Environ. Change 69, 102290 (2021).

  11. Newell, P., Paterson, M. & Craig, M. The politics of green transformations. New Political Econ. 26, 903–906 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Nightingale, A. J., Gonda, N. & Eriksen, S. H. Affective adaptation = effective transformation? Shifting the politics of climate change adaptation and transformation from the status quo. Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change 13, e740 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Osborne, T. et al. The political ecology playbook for ecosystem restoration: principles for effective, equitable, and transformative landscapes. Glob. Environ. Change 70, 102320 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Stoddard, I. et al. Three decades of climate mitigation: why haven’t we bent the global emissions curve? Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 46, 653–689 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Climate Action Tracker Global Update: Climate Summit Momentum (New Climate Institute, 2021).

  16. Pörtner, H.-O. et al. Scientific Outcome of the IPBES–IPCC Co-sponsored Workshop on Biodiversity and Climate Change (IPBES, 2021); https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4659158

  17. Commitments to Net Zero Double in Less than a Year: 21 September 2020 (UN Climate Change, 2020).

  18. Barrett, C. B. & Constas, M. A. Toward a theory of resilience for international development applications. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 14625–14630 (2014).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Leichenko, R. & O’Brien, K. Climate and Society: Transforming the Future (Polity Press, 2019).

  20. Tàbara, J. D. et al. Positive tipping points in a rapidly warming world. Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain. 31, 120–129 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Scheffer, M. et al. Creating a safe operating space for iconic ecosystems. Science 347, 1317–1319 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Van de Leemput, I. A., Hughes, T. P., van Nes, E. H. & Scheffer, M. Multiple feedbacks and the prevalence of alternate stable states on coral reefs. Coral Reefs 35, 857–865 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Sharpe, S. & Lenton, T. M. Upward-scaling tipping cascades to meet climate goals: plausible grounds for hope. Clim. Policy 21, 421–433 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Hughes, T. P. et al. Coral reefs in the Anthropocene. Nature 546, 82–90 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Polanyi, K. The Great Transformation (Beacon, 1944).

  26. Weber, M. Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (Univ. California Press, 1922).

  27. Hinrichs, C. C. Transitions to sustainability: a change in thinking about food systems change? Agric. Human. Values 31, 143–155 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Sovacool, B. K. & Dunlap, A. Anarchy, war, or revolt? Radical perspectives for climate protection, insurgency and civil disobedience in a low-carbon era. Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 86, 102416 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Bulkeley, H. Climate changed urban futures: environmental politics in the anthropocene city. Environ. Politics 30, 266–284 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Gibbs, H. K. et al. Brazil’s soy moratorium. Science 347, 377–378 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  31. Gronow, A., Brockhaus, M., Di Gregorio, M., Karimo, A. & Ylä-Anttila, T. Policy learning as complex contagion: how social networks shape organizational beliefs in forest-based climate change mitigation. Policy Sci. 54, 529–556 (2021).

  32. Kostis, H. N. et al. in Foundations of Data Visualization (eds Chen, M. et al.) 319–340 (Springer, 2020).

  33. Sheppard, S. R. et al. Future visioning of local climate change: a framework for community engagement and planning with scenarios and visualisation. Futures 43, 400–412 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Fisher, D. R. & Nasrin, S. Shifting coalitions within the youth climate movement in the US. Politics Gov. 9, 112–123 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Sultana, F. The unbearable heaviness of climate coloniality. Polit. Geogr. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102638 (2022).

  36. Bentz, J., O’Brien, K. & Scoville-Simonds, M. Beyond ‘blah blah blah’: exploring the ‘how’ of transformation. Sustain. Sci. 17, 497–506 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Blythe, J. et al. The dark side of transformation: latent risks in contemporary sustainability discourse. Antipode 50, 1206–1223 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Arnstein, S. A ladder of citizen participation. J. Am. Inst. Plan. 35, 216–224 (1969).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Fuss, S. et al. Negative emissions—part 2: costs, potentials and side effects. Environ. Res. Lett. 13, 063002 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Condie, S. A. et al. Large-scale interventions may delay decline of the Great Barrier Reef. R. Soc. Open Sci. 8, 201296 (2021).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  41. Dumroese, R. K., Williams, M. I., Stanturf, J. A. & Clair, J. B. S. Considerations for restoring temperate forests of tomorrow: forest restoration, assisted migration, and bioengineering. New For. 46, 947–964 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Lockley, A. et al. Glacier geoengineering to address sea-level rise: a geotechnical approach. Adv. Clim. Chang. Res. 11, 401–414 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Moore, J. C., Gladstone, R., Zwinger, T. & Wolovick, M. Geoengineer polar glaciers to slow sea-level rise. Nature 555, 303–305 (2018).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  44. Climate Intervention: Carbon Dioxide Removal and Reliable Sequestration (National Academies Press, 2015).

  45. Climate Intervention: Reflecting Sunlight to Cool Earth (National Academies Press, 2015).

  46. Morrison, T. H. et al. Save reefs to rescue all ecosystems. Nature 573, 333–336 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  47. Buck, H. J. et al. Evaluating the efficacy and equity of environmental stopgap measures. Nat. Sustain. 3, 499–504 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Morrison, T. H. et al. Advancing coral reef governance into the Anthropocene. One Earth 2, 64–74 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Aldy, J. E. et al. Social science research to inform solar geoengineering. Science 374, 815–818 (2021).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  50. Gardiner, S. M., McKinnon, C. & Fragnière, A. (eds) The Ethics of Geoengineering the Global Climate: Justice, Legitimacy and Governance (Routledge, 2021).

  51. Hulme, M. Can Science Fix Climate Change?: A Case Against Climate Engineering (Polity, 2014).

  52. Republic of Fiji. COP23 Talanoa Dialogue Submission: ‘Where are We?’ (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2018).

  53. Rao, N. R. H., Tamburic, B., Doan, Y. T. T., Nguyen, B. D. & Henderson, R. K. Algal biotechnology in Australia and Vietnam: opportunities and challenges. Algal Res. 56, 102335 (2021).

  54. Griscom, B. W. et al. Natural climate solutions. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 11645–11650 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  55. Gou, Z. & Xie, X. Evolving green building: triple bottom line or regenerative design? J. Clean. Prod. 153, 600–607 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Possingham, H. P., Bode, M. & Klein, C. J. Optimal conservation outcomes require both restoration and protection. PLoS Biol. 13, e1002052 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Gallagher, J. B., Shelamoff, V. & Layton, C. Seaweed ecosystems may not mitigate CO2 emissions. ICES J. Mar. Sci. 79, 585–592 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Seddon, N. et al. Understanding the value and limits of nature-based solutions to climate change and other global challenges. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 375, 20190120 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Capstick, S. et al. Civil disobedience by scientists helps press for urgent climate action. Nat. Clim. Change 12, 773–774 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. Glavovic, B. C., Smith, T. F. & White, I. The tragedy of climate change science. Clim. Dev. https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2021.2008855 (2021).

  61. Hayes, S. & O’Neill, S. The Greta effect: visualising climate protest in UK media and the Getty images collections. Glob. Environ. Change 71, 102392 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  62. Folke, C. et al. Transnational corporations and the challenge of biosphere stewardship. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 3, 1396–1403 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. Farmer, J. D. et al. Sensitive intervention points in the post-carbon transition. Science 364, 132–134 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  64. Chinn, S. & Hart, P. S. Climate change consensus messages cause reactance. Environ. Commun. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2022.2101501 (2021).

  65. Hornsey, M. J., Harris, E. A. & Fielding, K. S. Relationships among conspiratorial beliefs, conservatism and climate scepticism across nations. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 614–620 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. Jenkins-Smith, H. C. et al. Partisan asymmetry in temporal stability of climate change beliefs. Nat. Clim. Change 10, 322–328 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  67. Routledge, P., Cumbers, A. & Derickson, K. D. States of just transition: realising climate justice through and against the state. Geoforum 88, 78–86 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  68. Morrison, T. H. et al. Political dynamics and governance of World Heritage ecosystems. Nat. Sustain. 3, 947–955 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  69. Steinberger, J. K., Lamb, W. F. & Sakai, M. Your money or your life? The carbon-development paradox. Environ. Res. Lett. 15, 044016 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  70. Fung, A. Infotopia: unleashing the democratic power of transparency. Polit. Soc. 41, 183–212 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  71. Dambacher, B. M., Stilwell, M. T. & McGee, J. S. Clearing the air: avoiding conflicts of interest within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. J. Environ. Law 32, 53–81 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  72. Morrison, T. H. et al. Mitigation and adaptation in polycentric systems: sources of power in the pursuit of collective goals. Wiley Interdiscip. Rev. Clim. Change 8, e479 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  73. Hickel, J. et al. Urgent need for post-growth climate mitigation scenarios. Nat. Energy 6, 766–768 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. Kallis, G. et al. Research on degrowth. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 43, 291–316 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  75. Millward-Hopkins, J., Steinberger, J. K., Rao, N. D. & Oswald, Y. Providing decent living with minimum energy: a global scenario. Glob. Environ. Change 65, 102168 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  76. Piketty, T. Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Harvard Univ. Press, 2018).

  77. Lemos, M. C., Lo, Y. J., Nelson, D. R., Eakin, H. & Bedran-Martins, A. M. Linking development to climate adaptation: leveraging generic and specific capacities to reduce vulnerability to drought in NE Brazil. Glob. Environ. Change 39, 170–179 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  78. Bedran-Martins, A. M. & Lemos, M. C. Politics of drought under Bolsa Família Program in Northeast Brazil. World Dev. Perspect. 7, 15–21 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  79. Blackman, A., Corral, L., Lima, E. S. & Asner, G. P. Titling indigenous communities protects forests in the Peruvian Amazon. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 4123–4128 (2017).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  80. Erbaugh, J. T. et al. Global forest restoration and the importance of prioritizing local communities. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 4, 1472–1476 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  81. Hajjar, R. et al. A global analysis of the social and environmental outcomes of community forests. Nat. Sustain. 4, 216–224 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  82. Agrawal, A., Kaur, N., Shakya, C. & Norton, A. Social assistance programs and climate resilience: reducing vulnerability through cash transfers. Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain. 44, 113–123 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  83. Morrison, T. H., Lane, M. B. & Hibbard, M. Planning, governance and rural futures in Australia and the USA: revisiting the case for rural regional planning. J. Environ. Plann. Manag. 58, 1601–1616 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  84. Corbera, E., Roth, D. & Work, C. Climate change policies, natural resources and conflict: implications for development. Clim. Policy 19, S1–S7 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  85. Burch, S. et al. New directions in earth system governance research. Earth Syst. Gov. 1, 100006 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  86. Rogge, K. S., Kern, F. & Howlett, M. Conceptual and empirical advances in analysing policy mixes for energy transitions. Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 33, 1–10 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  87. Termeer, C. J. & Dewulf, A. A small wins framework to overcome the evaluation paradox of governing wicked problems. Policy Soc. 38, 298–314 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  88. Galaz, V., Crona, B., Dauriach, A., Scholtens, B. & Steffen, W. Finance and the earth system: exploring the links between financial actors and non-linear changes in the climate system. Glob. Environ. Change 53, 296–302 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  89. Low, S., Baum, C. M. & Sovacool, B. K. Taking it outside: exploring social opposition to 21 early-stage experiments in radical climate interventions. Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 90, 102594 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  90. Welsby, D. et al. Unextractable fossil fuels in a 1.5 °C world. Nature 597, 230–234 (2021).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  91. Leiserowitz, A., Roser-Renouf, C., Marlon, J. & Maibach, E. Global warming’s six Americas: a review and recommendations for climate change communication. Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. 42, 97–103 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  92. Wang, S., Corner, A. & Nicholls, J. Britain Talks Climate: A Toolkit for Engaging the British Public on Climate Change (Climate Outreach, 2020).

  93. Whitmarsh, L. & Corner, A. Tools for a new climate conversation: a mixed-methods study of language for public engagement across the political spectrum. Glob. Environ. Change 42, 122–135 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  94. Bernstein, S. & Hoffmann, M. The politics of decarbonization and the catalytic impact of subnational climate experiments. Policy Sci. 51, 189–211 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  95. Broto, V. C. Urban governance and the politics of climate change. World Dev. 93, 1–15 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank R. de Sousa de Saboya and J. Lokrantz for assisting with illustrations and M. Lane for their insightful comments and suggestions. This work was supported by funding under the Australian Research Council Discovery Program (grant no. DP220103921) and Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence Program (grant no. CE140100020) to T.H.M. and T.P.H., the Wellcome Trust Our Planet Our Health Programme (grant no. 216014/Z/19/Z) to W.N.A and a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (grant no. RF-2021-599) to S.O.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia

    Tiffany H. Morrison, Terry P. Hughes & Lucy Holmes McHugh

  2. School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia

    Tiffany H. Morrison

  3. Geography, Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK

    W. Neil Adger, Katrina Brown & Saffron O’Neill

  4. School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

    Arun Agrawal, Meha Jain, Maria Carmen Lemos & Derek Van Berkel

  5. Business School, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Matthew J. Hornsey

Authors
  1. Tiffany H. Morrison
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. W. Neil Adger
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Arun Agrawal
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Katrina Brown
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Matthew J. Hornsey
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Terry P. Hughes
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Meha Jain
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Maria Carmen Lemos
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Lucy Holmes McHugh
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Saffron O’Neill
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Derek Van Berkel
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

T.H.M. conceived the idea and led the analytic design. K.B, W.N.A., M.C.L. and T.P.H. led the development of concepts and ideas across the disciplines. All authors drafted, reviewed and edited the paper.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tiffany H. Morrison.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Climate Change thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Morrison, T.H., Adger, W.N., Agrawal, A. et al. Radical interventions for climate-impacted systems. Nat. Clim. Chang. 12, 1100–1106 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01542-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Version of record:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01542-y

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing