The critical role of governance for decarbonisation at pace: learning the lessons from SHAPE research— Introduction

Birch, Sarah, Graham, Hilary, Jordan, Andrew ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7678-1024, O’Riordan, Tim and Richards, Henry (2025) The critical role of governance for decarbonisation at pace: learning the lessons from SHAPE research— Introduction. Journal of the British Academy, 13 (1). ISSN 2052-7217

Preview

PDF (jba2025009) - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (227kB) | Preview

Abstract

This article introduces the thematic collection, ‘The critical role of governance for decarbonisation at pace: learning the lessons from SHAPE research’, edited by Sarah Birch, Hilary Graham, Andrew Jordan, Tim O’Riordan, and Henry Richards. With confirmation that global average temperatures in 2024 exceeded 1.5° above pre-industrial levels, and near continuous news of extreme weather events around the world, there seems little to dispute the characterisation of UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, that ‘every country must deliver and play their rightful part’. Guterres and many others point to the urgency of action, even though it is palpably sluggish. In the collection, we argue that SHAPE (Social Science, Humanities, and the Arts for People, Economy and environment) research provides the essential lynchpin for policymakers to understand people, societies, economies, and cultures and what works in practice to bring about the transformative changes needed to respond to this challenge. The common thread of this collection is governance. Governance provides the political and civic mechanisms to deliberate and make inclusive decisions based on evidence and collective judgements about our shared future. The collection features crucial policy insights drawn from SHAPE research to advance the principles and practices of consensual governance, and to help navigate ‘an exit off the highway to climate hell’.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	deliberative,governance,inclusive,net zero,shape,shared future,arts and humanities (miscellaneous),social sciences (miscellaneous),sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1200/1201
Faculty \ School:	University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment (CSERGE)
Related URLs:	https://www.scopus.com/pages/publication...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	10 Aug 2026 12:45
Last Modified:	10 Aug 2026 12:45
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/104080
DOI:	10.5871/jba/013.a09

Downloads

Actions (login required)

View Item