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.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

Climate change as a wicked social problem

Nature Geoscience volume 9, pages 562–563 (2016)Cite this article

Subjects

To the Editor –

Thirty years ago, atmospheric scientists alerted the world to large-scale ozone loss over Antarctica1. The phenomenon, later dubbed the 'ozone hole', galvanized the international policy process into adopting binding controls of ozone-depleting substances in the following year. Now, the process seems to show its effectiveness2,3. At the time, the unfolding events over Antarctica rattled scientists' confidence in their understanding of the atmosphere. Scientists and politicians alike emphasized the need for scientific consensus. All emitters of pollutants agreed to a binding treaty that successfully established global targets and timetables. But when this same concept of an agreed binding treaty based on a scientific consensus was subsequently applied to climate change, the results were underwhelming. I argue that the reason for this failure is that unlike the ozone problem, climate change is not a scientific but a social problem. It is also a wicked problem, one that cannot be solved, but must instead be re-solved and renegotiated, over and over again.

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

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

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

References

  1. Stolarski, R. S. et al. Nature 322, 808–811 (1986).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Solomon, S. et al. Science http://doi.org/bkn5 (2016).

  3. Grundmann, R. Transnational Environmental Policy: Reconstructing Ozone (Routledge, 2001).

    Google Scholar 

  4. Rayner, S. & Caine, M. The Hartwell Approach to Climate Policy (Routledge, 2014).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  5. Tolba, M. K. Global Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating Environmental Agreements for the World, 1973–1992 (MIT Press, 2008).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Haas, P. M. Int. Organ. 46, 187–224 (1992).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Cook, J. et al. Environ. Res. Lett. 8, 024024 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Grundmann, R. & Scott, M. Public Underst. Sci. 23, 220–235 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Rittel, H. W. J. & Webber, M. M. Policy Sci. 4, 155–169 (1973).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Pearce, F. What is the carbon limit? That depends who you ask. Yale Environment 360 (6 November 2014).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Biello, D. Is the cure (geoengineering) worse than the disease (global warming)? Scientific American Blog Network http://go.nature.com/29z6XnP (2010).

    Google Scholar 

  12. Nature 517, 5 (2015); http://doi.org/bk94

  13. Fleurbaey, M. et al. Nature 534, 616–617 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Nottingham, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, UK

    Reiner Grundmann

Authors
  1. Reiner Grundmann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Reiner Grundmann.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Grundmann, R. Climate change as a wicked social problem. Nature Geosci 9, 562–563 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2780

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2780

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