IC28: What are climate change attribution studies?

Is there a backlash against sustainability regulation? Professor Andreas Rasche joins Kaisa for a conversation about corporate sustainability regulation and unpacks the shift from voluntary CSR to today’s sustainability regulation and the current push for simplification. We discuss what makes sustainability regulation effective, whether good regulation is inevitably a little inconvenient if it is meant to drive change, and how to balance ambition, feasibility and predictability.

What does it take to make respect for human rights more than a corporate commitment on paper? Kaisa is joined by business and human rights expert Salma Houerbi to explore how the field has evolved from debating whether companies have responsibilities to the much harder question of how to turn them into meaningful outcomes for workers and communities. We discuss the role—and limits—of the business case, why process and reporting are not the same as impact, and why context, power and the voices of rights holders matter.

In this episode, I sit down with Professor Markus Kröger, who has spent the past two decades researching the political economy of deforestation, resource extraction and global development, with extensive fieldwork in the Amazon and Latin America. Scientists believe the Amazon may be approaching a tipping point — a threshold beyond which parts of the rainforest could gradually shift into a much drier savanna ecosystem. What's particularly concerning is that this could happen long before the entire forest is lost, with consequences that extend far beyond the Amazon by accelerating climate change and increasing the risk of other tipping points. So if we know the stakes are this high, why does stopping deforestation seem to be so difficult and so slow? We explore the political and economic forces that keep deforestation going, the interests and mindsets that reinforce these patterns, what Markus has learned from years of fieldwork, and what more hopeful alternatives he sees.

Today's guest is Sakari Säynäjoki, a doctoral researcher in Interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences at the University of Helsinki who studies the interdependence between modern societies and fossil fuels. Sakari’s research revolves around how fossil fuels enable not only our material realities, but in addition, shape our culture, values and thinking. The consequence: the green transition is a cultural challenge at least as much as it is a technological one. Does the general understanding and discourse of climate change overlook this?

In this week’s episode of Inconvenient Chats we are joined by Fred Baker, a sustainability strategy consultant here in Denmark. We delve into our personal relationships with flying and the guilt that often accompanies it. Both of us have made attempts to reduce our carbon footprints when it comes to air travel. However, the struggle remains, and we find ourselves questioning whether we should feel guilty about taking flights at all.

Inconvenient Chats is back after a break! We are continuing in a new format with guests, and in this first episode we discuss geopolitics and climate with Benjamin Gibson, the senior manager for geopolitics at the Danish wind energy developer Ørsted. Is geopolitics taking all attention away from climate action, and do businesses just need to deprioritise the climate agenda in order to keep themselves afloat in a geopolitically volatile world?

Last episode for now! Have you ever wondered how much our society is built on oil and gas besides electricity? Will we actually ever manage to transition away from it? Is it possible for all our consumption of plastic, polyester, nylon, helium, and so much more that one does not think of immediately? It feels like an impossible mountain to climb. But we're here for the conversation, with a little bit of hope and a little bit of fear.

Unfortunately, this week the audio quality is a little wonky. Better next week! This week, we dive into one of the key scientific topics in climate change: attribution science. So basically, the science that helps us make statements such as "this flood has been made X times more likely and Y times more severe because of climate change". That's event attribution. But then, there's also trend attribution, source attribution and impact attribution. We get into all of this, how it works, and more.

If the moral argument of ‘doing the right thing’ is outdated, should we switch to differently appealing argumentation in the way we talk about climate change with some audiences? In this episode, we discuss ‘selfish’ arguments for climate action, i.e. effects on health and money.

This week is special. We say hello to our first (of hopefully many) interview guests. And it’s a privilege that it’s Christian Sparrevohn. Christian lives and breathes sustainability. Having made it his life’s work not least by founding a leading sustainability consultancy in the Nordics. But also apart from that he is outspoken and listened to on the topics of sustainability, chairing the non-profit Rådet for Grøn Omstilling in Denmark So who better to talk to about ‘individual responsibilities in fighting climate change' also known as ‘what can I even affect when it comes to climate change?’ We talk about all the facets of life where the answer to that question might differ: as a private person, a professional, a citizen.