Climate Policy in a Turbulent World: Complementary Perspectives

Published: 3 July 2025

Summary
In this episode of SCAS Talks Spotlight you can hear some of the voices and insights from the symposium "Climate Policy in a Turbulent World: Complementary Perspectives." We delve into various aspects of climate policy, highlighting the roles of different actors and their influence on public-private partnerships. Discussions cover industrial transition, corporate sustainability, and the importance of global collaboration. Experts emphasize the need for economic incentives, transparent partnerships, and integrating scientific evidence into policy. They address challenges in making corporate sustainability business-critical, the role of the fossil fuel industry, and how scientists are speaking up against the potential use of geo-engineering. The podcast also touches on societal movements, individual lifestyles, and the importance of education and alliances in addressing climate change.

Keywords
Climate policy, public-private partnerships, Agenda 2030, energy transition, anthropocene

Transcript of the Episode

Natalie von der Lehr 00:08
Welcome to SCAS Talks, a podcast by the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. My name is Natalie von der Lehr, and in this episode within our series of SCAS Talks Spotlight, you will hear some of the voices from the symposium "Climate policy in a turbulent world: complementary perspectives", exploring different aspects of climate policy. What is the role of different actors and what is their influence on the relationship between public and private spheres? What about democracy, corporate involvement and citizenship in the context of climate change, and can this crisis also spark opportunities? Let me take you to the symposium, I am on my way to the Thunberg Hall in the botanical garden right now.

Christina Garsten 01:01
Warmly welcome to the Botanical Gardens, to the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, to Uppsala and to today's symposium "Climate policy in a turbulent world". And the subtitle of today's symposium is "Complementary perspectives". Our aim for this day is exactly this, to share perspectives from research, policy, business, social movements, to learn from each other and to explore ways forward - towards a more efficient engagement with climate change governance.

Natalie von der Lehr 01:42
And there you heard Christina Garsten, principal of SCAS and one of the organizers of this symposium, alongside with Adrienne Sörbom, Ulrik Jennische and Mikael Karlsson. Let's look for this complementary perspectives then. There are lots of different pieces to climate policy, such as economic incentives, enabling structures, an innovative ecosystem, and, of course, action to support implementation of energy transition. Along the way, partnerships with transparencies are needed. I asked Helen Ågren, chair of the government inquiry on strengthening Swedish climate action, for an example during the coffee break.

Helen Ågren 02:22
Yes, this is a collaboration, a leadership group for industrial transition, and we are focusing on heavy emitters like the steel and cement and transportation. So Sweden and India are leading this, chairing the collaboration, but we have 19 member countries and over 26 companies on board. So it's a public-private partnership, and we are working to raise the issue on the global agenda. We are working on technical collaboration and co-creation together with businesses, and we are working on country platforms, and Sweden and India have teamed up bilaterally to really support India in their transitioning their steel and cement sectors.

Natalie von der Lehr 03:07
What is the background of this bilateral collaboration? How did you arrive at this concept, so to say.

Helen Ågren 03:14
The leadership group was established in 2019 when Sweden and India were asked by the Secretary General to develop some type of collaboration on industry, but they intensified bilateral collaboration and support to the India's transition. It was initiated a couple of years ago, and it's really built on long term collaboration on diplomatic relations between India and Sweden. We celebrated 75 years of diplomatic relations the other year. We have long standing collaboration on innovation and high level engagement. So there are many stakeholders, businesses, political collaboration existing. So we're building on that, and we are developing it in the field of industrial transformation.

Natalie von der Lehr 04:07
In what way can this inspire others or other collaborations, do you think?

Helen Ågren 04:12
If we succeed, to deliver what we have set out to do, that is to show concrete projects on the ground, pilot projects for green steel and cement in India. That can be inspiring, because now it's the global north leading and companies in the global north. So how could we actually also show leadership and that it's possible to transform also in the global south and in fast growing economies. So that could be inspiring, and maybe the way we are collaborating together, public and private sector, because there are a lot of initiatives going on, but many times the private sector, the companies, are not on board. It's bilateral government-government initiative. So hopefully this will also be a source of inspiration, if it benefits the companies, if we can reduce emissions and really show progress, also on innovation and benefits for people.

Natalie von der Lehr 05:14
You also said in your talk that you need scientists, and you need, of course, the work of scientists to form climate politics. Yet there is still a gap sometimes between scientific results and political decisions. Do you have any thoughts on what can be done to bridge that gap?

Helen Ågren 05:33
First, I mean the Swedish governance model, we have quite small ministries and the public agencies, the sectoral agencies are larger, so it's to a large degree, the agencies that have more collaboration with researchers. But let me give you an example with the Lead-it. The secretariat of this initiative is the Stockholm Environment Institute, which is a research institute, but they are also working very intensively on policy development and being that bridge between science and policy. So that is an example on how we can bring in more science, but also interpreters between science and governments and business to the same room.

Natalie von der Lehr 06:27
So what about business? Then? How can corporate sustainability become business critical? I asked Jens Nielsen, CEO and founder of the World Climate Foundation.

Jens Nielsen 06:37
Everybody knows that, as the world is now, most of the solutions are going to come from business. Most of the money needs to come from the private sector as most governments in the world, not in the Nordics, are debt ridden. Just take US as an example, as well debt so they are not able to fund major restructuring programs like for climate, biodiversity. And the reform, which is often the most needed part, is going to come from governments and by reform, it's mainly market reform and moving subsidies that today supports primarily fossil fuel sector, moving them over to more green solutions.

Natalie von der Lehr 07:13
So what can these collaborations look like? How do they work in practice?

Jens Nielsen 07:17
We have quite some experience in our success in materializing the interaction, the public private partnership that can unleash some of these elements. For example, we have worked with the Nordic governments up towards the COP in Glasgow in 2021 at the prime minister level, on getting Nordic pension funds to commit 10% of their balance, a 130 billion US dollars to invest in climate before 2030 and that commitment came from them in public. And they also have committed to report on how much they invest every year. Given that the governments would provide the right framework conditions for the pension funds to fulfill their fiduciary duty, basically mean make a decent return to their pensioners and their clients. So it's a change in the relationship between governments and pension funds that has enabled that commitment, and it's well on track. This is an example of one of the things we have facilitated. It's actually the largest capital raising commitment to the Paris Agreement in the world.

Natalie von der Lehr 08:17
What are the biggest challenges then, in making corporate sustainability business critical, so to say. How do you do this? How do you make sustainability attractive to business?

Jens Nielsen 08:28
To make things business critical, you have to convince those that manage the business at the top, because businesses are often managed very top down. You have to make the leadership understand that if you at the same time manage the economics, the environment and the social aspects, you actually do better as a business. There is proof of that. We work together with the Imperial College, for example, in London, there is some proof that if you look towards all these dimensions, you increase shareholder value, and often it's the CEO's perspective to increase shareholder value. So I think first of all, you need to use the scientific evidence, because that resonates with top management. Secondly, you need to have some good examples. There are good examples in Novo Nordisk. There's Unilever that for a long time, have seen that if you look towards saving on resources and working more circular, you also actually save some money and not overspending on things. And if you work on social aspects, you also get more motivated employees at the same time as they also work on probability. And I think we need to focus on that message, especially now in this time of geopolitics, because no one, very few, will listen to sustainability unless it makes money. Just simply due to the criticism and the pressure there is. We've had some other factors that have maybe played a too big role, the fact that we should report - a very strong push from regulators, but you don't make this business critical unless business finds it's critical. And you can shout as much as you want to do if you're a regulator, or you're an NGO, or you are an auditing company that can maybe get some mix of business out of all the reporting tools. It will only become business critical if the CEO and the top management think it's business critical.

Natalie von der Lehr 10:20
So it's those people that you really have to convince that it's a good idea.

Jens Nielsen 10:24
When you sit in top management position, you typically operate with a scorecard that's quite simple, 8,10 key parameters, and today, a lot of the reporting - I know it's necessary, but it's way too detailed. We need to find a way to transport all the good work that's done by sustainability departments into the main room for managing the business.

Natalie von der Lehr 10:44
What about the vested interests of the fossil fuel industry? I mean, we all know they exist. They have a lot of power economically. How do they fit into this picture?

Jens Nielsen 10:55
At the COP 28 in Dubai, there was an announcement of a clear intention to phase out fossil fuel. So that is what we need to do. To be realistic, we cannot live without fossil fuel, it has to service some of the transition. I think that the best bet for society, in my personal opinion, is to push through on investing in clean energy. Solar and wind are competitive today to the fossil fuel sector. And if we manage to electrify much of our society by using those renewable resources, we can be in a much better place than we think we are today. So let's compete with them, and of course, try and keep on lobbying them to phase it out, and especially ask them also to invest more in products that can reduce carbon emissions and maybe take carbon out of the air, etc. That's how I think realistically the world will pan out.

Natalie von der Lehr 11:47
But can you convince the fossil fuel industry to move away from fossil fuel themselves? How can that be of benefit for them?

Jens Nielsen 11:55
It's unrealistic to say we stop fossil fuel, but you need, of course, to phase out fossil fuel. And I think the agreement is done under the COP. It has to move from words to reality, and that's probably where, where we could land. Many of the fossil fuel companies, they are super good at energy, right? And hopefully they are moving over in the clean energy also, and will eventually move on that, that bandwagon, when that is more profitable than fossil fuel.

Natalie von der Lehr 12:23
Do you remember the 1990s? I do. I was a teenager when the Berlin Wall had fallen and there was a general sense of optimism for the future. Nowadays, the world looks quite different for young people growing up, and of course, for everybody else as well. Frank Biermann, Zennström visiting professor in climate change leadership at Uppsala University, has also spent some thought on this.

Frank Biermann 12:47
The current situation means an end to a lot of certainties that we had since the 1990s, which is the idea that political institutions need to be universal and will be universal, like in the United Nations setting, like the climate change convention that brings together all countries, like the biodiversity convention that is supposed to bring together all countries. And that also the idea of the 1990s was an idea of linear progress. That is, negotiate. We negotiate more. Have new treaties. We have a framework convention and a protocol, another protocol, and it gets slowly better. These ideas are maybe outdated. There might be a situation the universal orders are no longer functioning. There might be a situation when there is no linear progress anymore. That might be also going backwards. It's a very complicated new geopolitical environment, and governments and civil society and others have to maybe develop new strategies to deal with these kind of challenges.

Natalie von der Lehr 13:51
So very concretely then, what can we do in this moment and moving forward?

Frank Biermann 13:55
I think countries and other actors that are interested in supporting earth system governance and trying to deal with the challenges of climate change need to develop new strategies of what I call plurilateral governance, which means a plurilateral institutions. It means institutions that involve many countries, but not all countries, and most likely, and in particular, not the United States of America. So we have to get away from this old idea of transatlantic partnership, where United States of America and Europe, for example, are kind of always aligned because they share the same values. They share the same interest. These ideas might be more historical than the current, and therefore, especially the European Union, has to develop new strategies and find maybe also new partners, which is happening already to some extent, but more emphasis needs to be put on developing this new type of partnership that might be novel, that might be surprising, that will be different from the past to make climate change policies effective and just, even in a situation where not all countries are interested, and in some countries, such as United States under the Trump administration, are actively trying to boycott and to sanction and to block climate policies in the rest of the world. And that's a challenge for countries in general, and here, because I'm based in Sweden now, for the European governments in particular.

Natalie von der Lehr 15:28
There is also this idea, discussing climate change and what can we do, there is this idea that we can invent ourselves out of it, some technical optimism. You took up geo-engineering.

Frank Biermann 15:39
Geo-engineering is new idea. I mean, it has been around for 10,20 years, but it's now getting much more support by some scientists, natural scientists, largely, largely from United States, but also in the United Kingdom and some other places. The core idea is that there might be a Plan B, that in addition or instead of drastically reducing our emissions, we could artificially cool the planet. And artificially cooling the planet means here to try to block parts of the sunlight, to reflect back parts of the sunlight, which would have a cooling effect if it worked. And concretely, some people propose to investigate, at least, a global program by which aerosols would be injected, inserted into the stratosphere, which is the outer layer of the atmosphere, and to create kind of like almost clouds, in the sense of aerosols in the stratosphere that would block parts of the sunlight. And that is being discussed. And I think this is a crazy idea. I'm absolutely concerned about these debates because I believe that the negative impacts of these technologies, if they would ever be deployed, are unknowable. There might be unknown risk for all sorts of ecological and also social ecological systems. There might be huge risk for especially the poor. I believe that these technologies cannot be governed at a planetary scale. I think the United Nations are not apt to run such projects. They are not the right organization, and other organizations are not there. I mean, there's no global geo engineering authority. It's very difficult to imagine one. I would believe it's under current geopolitical circumstances impossible. And also I believe that the current debate on geo-engineering might be rather harmful to the ongoing attempts of reducing the emissions. It might delay, it might derail the current policies that are being implemented. And therefore, I think it's a very harmful debate. And for that reason, I believe that governments need to take action. So I believe governments have to get together and agree on and sign an international non use agreement on solar geo-engineering. I think that's really important. There's an idea that is supported by 550 scientists who have signed an open letter to that effect, the idea has been supported by 2000, more than 2000 civil society organizations, and also the group of African countries in the climate negotiations has also spoken out and has said they are proposing a non-use mechanism on geo-engineering, also Vanuatu, who is in support of Fiji, has said they would propose and support a non-use agreement. And that means that the idea of a non-use engineering is increasing. This is getting more support. So I'm quite optimistic that in a few years, such an agreement will happen, and that geo-engineering will no longer be at issue because it might be banned at some point.

Natalie von der Lehr 18:45
You were talking about this open letter, these petitions, in what way do you think scientists should also be activists?

Frank Biermann 18:53
I think the old days, the old ideas of sitting in Ivory Tower and reading books and writing books and sitting in a Chesterfield sofa and smoking cigars and having expensive coffee and whatever, port afterwards, this is outdated. I think that the planetary crisis is so fundamental, it's so threatening, that scientists have to speak out. They have to engage in political debates based on science, based on evidence, based on the knowledge that they have generated. But they should no longer only write academic papers that eventually no decision maker will ever read. They have to engage in political debates. And an example is what I just mentioned about geo-engineering, where we put together an open letter on a website with a clear and I would argue, a very convincing policy proposal, and then try to engage with decision makers and try to listen to their comments and try to make the case for this particular policy proposition that we have made. And this is what sometimes is being called "engaged scholarship". But you can also call it activist or scholar activist, as long as it is based on science and knowledge and truth, and that's very important, of course. I mean, it's not, scientists should not speak about issues they don't understand, that needs to be linked to their own active research and their own knowledge, however it is being defined.

Natalie von der Lehr 20:15
So we have many actors in the public sphere, but then they're also social movements. How can these contribute to making our lifestyle more sustainable? I deprive Genevieve Shanahan, Lecturer in Management, Employment and Organization at Cardiff Business School, off a coffee break in the afternoon to ask some questions about social movements and what she calls the good life.

Natalie von der Lehr 20:36
Coffee is also going to be a luxury soon.

Genevieve Shanahan 20:39
Oh no, don't tell me this!

Natalie von der Lehr 20:40
You just talked about societal movements. Can you give an example of such a movement?

Genevieve Shanahan 20:47
I really love the idea of libraries for everything. I think this is a really clear utopian vision of the good life, and we see it already in the expansion of the idea of the library, a place where there are books that are held in common by the community and everybody has access to them, and expanding this to libraries of things. So for instance, whereas five years ago, if I wanted to go camping in the summers, I would have to invest in a personal tent and all of the embedded carbon emissions in that object just sitting in my attic. Whereas now it’s more common that we have libraries of things where you can rent a tent that's maybe ideally owned by the community. The terms are agreed in common by that community. But there we can see that's already expanding massively, the luxuries that I have access to when I think more in terms of what could be shared luxuries, rather than always the good life being private luxury maximization.

Natalie von der Lehr 21:53
You mentioned the good life. What is that?

Genevieve Shanahan 21:55
I think I can't tell somebody what the good life is. Various communities have their own ideas about what a good life entails. So for me, maybe the good life entails a lot of dancing and late night conversations and good books. Maybe for someone else, the good life entails a lot of spirituality or having a lot of kids or something like this. But the point that I want to emphasize is that we know the aspirational idea of the good life right now in society of grinding to accumulate as much private luxury as possible, that sort of a good life is not compatible with the climate and with the planetary limits, with sustainability, with justice, global justice, we know that that's built upon exploitation, especially of the people of the Global South. And so I would like to imagine that there are various types of good life that we might develop, but that they should be just not based on exploitation of others, not based on unsustainable environmental practices.

Natalie von der Lehr 23:11
In a way, this good life, I mean, that sort of puts the focus on the individual. So how can we move away from the individual to a more systemic level that makes the good life possible, so to say?

Genevieve Shanahan 23:22
This is maybe the shortcoming with prefigurative movements by themselves, to engage with these sorts of utopian projects, you often need to already be somewhat privileged in life. Have some free time, have some disposable income to frequent the farmers market, for instance. And so this is the important second part of the story is that we need to align public policy with the ability of everybody to explore, imagine alternative, sustainable and just good lives for themselves. So we need, for instance, the material conditions of that exploration, so universal basic services or universal basic income, that would give everybody kind of a private sufficiency. And then the idea from George Monbiot is public luxury, so that governments can respond to the prefiguration of these commons, public comments, common good, and actually provide that handed over to to the public in a way that is not privatized, not for profit, not corporatized.

Natalie von der Lehr 24:40
Maybe a bit ironically, our modern society's prosperity is built on fossil fuels, making the necessary transformations to meet different sustainability goals a complex and often uncomfortable process for both corporations and individuals. Right wing populist parties exploit public concerns by promising simple solutions to complex problems. Just before dinner, at the end of a long day, I talked to Simone Abram, professor and Executive Director at the Durham Energy Institute at Durham University in the UK, about the recent local election in the county of Durham in the North East of England. In this election, the right wing populist Reform Party went from having no councils at all to as much as two thirds of the council. The rise of these kind of parties can be seen everywhere in the world. And the big question is, of course, why are they an attractive alternative to so many voters?

Simone Abram 25:37
They offer something that looks like a solution, so they build on a politics of grievance. They encourage people to feel a grievance, and then they promise to resolve that, and they promise to take it out on the imaginary enemy. So it's very attractive. It's something to follow. It's something that you can sort of hang on to the slogans and allow them to speak to you personally. But of course, when they come into contact with reality is we know they don't actually affect the kind of change that's promised. So from my perspective, I would say it's an illusion. But I think that's not the same as saying that people's grievances are an illusion. You know, people do have reasonable things that they're unhappy about, and sometimes it's easier to vote for someone who appears to be against everybody else, but whether or not their solutions are going to work for you seems to be a separate issue.

Natalie von der Lehr 26:24
What can these tendencies tell us about leadership or lack of leadership in climate questions?

Simone Abram 26:29
That ties together with the same thing, doesn't it? I think, I think a lot of the mainstream or democratic parties have been spooked, if you like, by the rise of populism, which seems to be offering these easy answers, and the temptation is to offer some other easy answers, to compete with it. For me, that's not leadership. Leadership is really trying to make sense of the realities of the world around us and offer hope that we can resolve them, and not sort of pandering to the lowest common opportunity, if I can put it that way. So I really think that having the courage to stand up for what you believe in having some kind of moral authority. To say what's right and what's wrong is the only way that you can bring people with you in politics, because otherwise, what is there to vote for?

Natalie von der Lehr 27:09
How can you, as a scientist, contribute?

Simone Abram 27:12
I think it's really important for social scientists in particular, to be documenting very carefully what is actually happening, because you know, it's very easy for commentators to make grand, sweeping statements about people think this, that and the other. But actually, if we, if you're on the ground, looking at what what circumstances people are living in, and what they're dealing with on an everyday basis, you might get a clearer sense of why they might be tempted into taking different kinds of decisions. So that's one really important thing, and another is to challenge the assumptions on which we base our prejudices. Specifically coming from a background in social anthropology, one of the key aims is trying to encourage empathy with other people's positions, because if you start to empathize with another person's position, you might generate more understanding. Doesn't mean you necessarily agree with them, but you have some understanding of where they might come from, and that gives you an opportunity to be a bit more considerate to their point of view.

Natalie von der Lehr 27:59
Anything you want to add?

Simone Abram 28:03
There is one area that I think is really worth thinking about carefully and reflecting on, and that's the way in which we sometimes moralize our political arguments. I think there's a real danger of that. You know, people who want to do something about climate change feel that they're on the moral high ground, and then you can become very moralistic. And I don't think that helps us make progress where there are disagreements. Actually we need to approach them in a slightly more humble way, but not without losing conviction in what we think ishappening.

Natalie von der Lehr 28:40
Let's go back to partnerships then, which by now we can agree on are important to reach the goals for example, the Paris Agreement, the sustainability goals of Agenda 2030 and moving towards net zero emissionsby 2045. At the same time as most actors agree on the common goal, there are different ways to get there. Mattias Frumerie, climate ambassador and head of delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change at the Swedish Ministry of Climate and Enterprise has worked with multiple frameworks and arenas throughout the years. He shares some of his thoughts and experience after the symposium.

Mattias Frumerie 29:20
All countries have different starting points, have different conditions for the way that they can work and engage, and that, of course, also impacts how we engage with those countries and what kind of platforms we choose for that engagement. When I would say a key element of our engagement is various types of relationships we have with countries, in terms of collaboration agreements, memorandums and understanding, various types of partnerships we have established with countries which we can use as platforms to deepen that kind of dialog and find ways to cooperate. But of course, also our development finance is a key component in terms of our relationship with developing countries and how we see for them to implement the kind of priorities that they set. But then also, increasingly, we're seeing the engagement with various types of business actors and business organizations as well, where we can be joining hands in many ways to highlight those kind of solutions that we see are available.

Natalie von der Lehr 30:15
What are the main obstacles on the way?

Mattias Frumerie 30:18
I think that's also very much depending on the country. Different countries can have different obstacles, and in some cases, I think we should be quite honest about that as well. I mean, some countries would have a lesser interest to see the transition to net zero happen as quickly as possible, because they still are making money from the fossil fuel economy. So countries who are exporting fossil fuels. I mean, I would think have an interest in ensuring income from those exports for quite some time, or for at least for as long as they can extract those kind of resources, thereby, sort of continuing building their economy on fossil fuel income. So for those kind of countries, I mean, that in itself, I guess you could call a barrier. For other countries, it might be that they don't have access to the kind of finance that they need. And in other countries it might be that they don't have access to the kind of technology which they would need in order to sort of deploy the kind of solutions. And some other countries might have capacity constraints in terms of, you know, how do we structure our institutions and how do we make sure that we set the right kind of policies in place, and in some countries, it might be mixed, but of course, that's something, you know, when we engage with individual countries, also, we have to bear in mind what kind of barriers there are, but also trying to find, you know, identify the opportunities that we see. And how can we, from a Swedish perspective, be working with that particular country to find those opportunities and make sure that we're all benefiting from them. And then, of course, making that change also strengthens competitiveness, creates new jobs, creates growth within those companies, which, of course, also then contributes to growth of individual countries.

Natalie von der Lehr 31:53
You have had this, your position for quite a while. How do you think the development has been so far, and what kind of changes have you seen? How do you see the way forward also.

Mattias Frumerie 32:03
I think what we've seen during the past couple of years is a stronger consensus on the necessity of limiting temperature rise to 1.5. I mean, the Paris Agreement says two degrees, aiming at 1.5, but my sense is that we also within the global negotiations, have a stronger consensus now that it is that we need to limit temperature rise to 1.5. So that's a positive development from that we've seen over the past couple of years. The difference still between countries is the pace and speed at which we should be achieving this, where you know, we from the EU side are pushing for an accelerated transition, and that's also how you know, hopefully, we're embracing that in terms of the own policies that we're setting with our present goal of reducing emissions by at least 55% by 2030. But of course, there are other countries in the world who have maybe a different perspective in terms of the timeline, and you know how urgently we need to make the transition. But that agreement and consensus towards 1.5 I think, is one significant development over the past couple of years. Another one is actually the one on opportunities. Again, when I started a couple of years back, the conversation was not so much on the opportunities of the transition, but rather sort of the costs implied and the difficult changes that it would entail for both, sort of on the country level and various levels, also for companies and individuals. Now I think we're seeing more and more actors highlighting the kind of opportunities that we see as well, which, from my perspective, is a good development, because hopefully that will encourage and inspire more actors to actually take a more sort of forward leaning role when it comes to the transition, both from a country level, but also then from a company level and various types of actors. So I think those are two developments I'd like to highlight in terms of changes we've seen over the past couple of years. But then, of course, also recognizing that the world we live in today is more complex. We thought we lived in a complex world earlier, but I guess the complexities have in some way increased. So that's also something, of course, that we need to tackle and consider in terms of the actions that we take, and how we can build various types of partnerships in light of that complexity, and find those actors which want to work with us to strengthen that kind of approach in terms of accelerating the transition.

Natalie von der Lehr 34:23
The need for knowledge is, of course, one important piece of the puzzle. This knowledge then, has to be translated into action. And we have heard quite some reflection of how this can be done in this podcast episode. To round off with, I check what Sverker Sörlin, professor of environmental history at the Royal Institute of Technology and long Term Fellow at SCAS has to say about knowledge and education. But first of all, he reminds us not to give up.

Sverker Sörlin 34:49
The COP 29 in Copenhagen was a real dip for and many were very, very disheartened by the bad outcome that time. But I remember, actually, in that very moment, I remember doing. An interview for the Swedish Radioin a sort of climate program. They, they asked me about this, should we give up now? And said, we should not at all give up. Who knows this might be actually better in in a few years. And I think it actually became better, or at least we found a way forward through the Paris Agreement, which, of course, is much, slower than it should be. I mean, there is no reason for undue optimism here. It's a very serious crisis situation in the world, and with climate, that is no reason to give up. It's actually better for us, those of us who do the work that we are trying to improve things. I mean, that's like a given.

Natalie von der Lehr 35:38
"Don't give up" was also one of your eight points in the end, that was sort of a recommendation for how to move along now, how to move forward. Something else that you would like to point out there that we should think about moving forward?

Sverker Sörlin 35:50
I would stress this thing with with alliances, that we should try to find friends around the world, but it's also very important to keep a tidy kitchen at home. We need to maintain high ambitions. We've been not really doing all that well in last few years, and we should return to our older high ambitions. We're still performing reasonably well, but we don't meet even our own environmental targets since the early 2000s - only one out of17, basically. So that's something we should do. The gist of it all is, I think, to be open, collaborative and not be led astray by this current downturn. Also, since issues about preparedness and defense and crisis management is is on the agenda politically all over the world, really, and particularly in Europe, it's also important to see that environment and climate is part also of security issues, about safety issues, about basically having your world reasonably intact. And I think there are many opportunities of collaboration with the kinds of spending programs that are now opening up there. I am also a strong believer in education, which we in Swedish call "folkbildning", or in German "Bildung". In English, I would say general education, stressing the general in general education, which is a kind of education that should emphasize climate issues, issues about the Anthropocene, about the current crisis, that should be in everybody's, so to speak, household memory. Everybody should know that.

Natalie von der Lehr 37:35
Yes, you had the term "Anthropocene Bildung".

Sverker Sörlin 37:38
Yes, kind of a hybrid of this new term "Anthropocene" and the old German "Bildung", we say "bildning", which isan old concept even since the Middle Ages, actually, but it combines this personal knowledge and emancipation and awareness of the individual with a sense of responsibility for the community to go together. We often put the word "folk" before, like for people, it's for everybody, and it's also for adults. I mean, you have the schooling system. You have universities for those that grow up, but "folkbildning" in Swedish is an effort to reach everybody, because after several decades, what you train in school was a little bit outdated. Also, it's a way of combating those evil forces that are spreading disinformation and just try to make us not wiser but the opposite.

Natalie von der Lehr 38:41
So there we are, after a day of discussing complementary perspectives of climate policy in a turbulent world. Complexity was surely a reoccurring word, as was crisis and turbulent times. But then there are other terms, like collaborations, opportunities and transformation. Hopefully all of these parts can come together and contribute to address and mitigate climate change. You have listened to SCAS Talks, a podcast by the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study, and an episode within our series of SCAS Talks Spotlight, featuring the symposium "Climate policy in a turbulent world: complementary perspectives", held in May 2025. I would like to thank Helen Ågren, Frank Biermann, Jens Nielsen, Genevieve Shanahan, Simone Abram, Mathias Frumerie and Sverker Sörlin for taking the time to talk to me during a busy day. In our regular episodes of SCAS Talks I talk to present and former fellows about their research. If you are interested in the Anthropocene, episodes number 48, 50 and 56 might be of special interest for you. Thanks for listening, and bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai