Victoria Wibeck

This essay discusses how ontological security – “security of being” – is a relevant concept in social science and humanities research on climate-induced, non-economic losses and damages. Building on scholarly literature on ontological security and drawing inspiration from my experiences of international studies on climate change-related challenges and responses, I seek to outline how an ontological security lens can provide important insights into sense-making of climate-induced impacts and responses. The essay discusses recurrent criticisms of the concept and argues for methodological approaches that pay attention to people’s narratives and sense-making processes. The essay argues that a relational understanding of ontological security and attention to people’s narratives could help unpack the meanings of climate-induced, intangible harms in everyday life. This could help bring cultural aspects of climate change to the fore, and shed light on identity, biographical continuity, place, and space as central dimensions of intangible losses and damages. This is important to deepen research as well as state and non-state actors’ discussions on climate-related losses and damages, and adaptation policy and measures.

The attention paid to justice dimensions in societal change toward decarbonization and resilience is growing in sustainability governance and research. “Just transition” is emerging as an emblematic concept in these discussions, yet there has been limited systematic stock‐taking of the major strands of research in this area. This paper aims to analyse the evolution of the “just transition” concept in the context of sustainability in empirical and theoretical scholarly literature. The paper provides comprehensive mapping and analysis of key trends and themes in peer‐reviewed literature, which could contribute to conceptual clarity around just transitions. We explore the scope of changes, i.e., whether and how the studies engage with narrower sector‐wise changes or broader profound societal changes; what justice dimensions are highlighted and in what ways; and what geographies dominate the research field. The analysis builds on a review of 491 peer‐reviewed papers published between 1998 and 2023. The literature on just transitions has expanded rapidly since 2020, with growing conceptual breadth and sectoral relevance. While papers frequently emphasize distributive justice in decarbonization processes in industrial regions, later studies also integrate procedural, recognitional, ecological, and emerging justice dimensions like planetary and intergenerational justice. Transitions are increasingly understood as complex, interconnected cultural, social, technological, economic, and political changes. However, most empirical studies focus on high‐income countries, with growing—but limited—coverage of middle‐ and low‐income contexts. This geographic imbalance risks reinforcing power asymmetries. Broader case diversity is needed to make the concept of just transitions applicable across varied socio‐economic, cultural and environmental settings.

The concept of Loss and Damage (L&D) is gaining increased attention within and outside of international climate negotiations, and by a broader array of actors looking to address the personal, practical, and political changes wrought by the impacts of climate change. While the original use of the term has developed within the international negotiations, the concept is increasingly tasked with making sense of, and dealing with, the impacts of climate change at national and local levels. In this context, there is a need to understand how the concept of L&D relates to people’s experiences of and potential responses to the impacts of climate change. We address this gap by drawing on dialogical sense-making analysis, that highlights how language both shapes, and is shaped by, the social interactions in which it is used. Our in-depth qualitative analysis builds on ten conversations with Pacific leaders familiar with Loss and Damage in international discussions as well as national and local-level experiences of actually-occurring losses and damages. We show how the depth and range of experiences that people articulate are often at odds with the meanings associated with the concept of Loss and Damage, which are primarily orientated towards the international climate negotiations. We therefore question whether and how the concept is relevant to these experiences and forms of sense-making. Grounding the concept of L&D will require attention to the kinds of conversations it is enabling, and how they can become more inclusive of plural perspectives, needs, knowledges and values.

Societal Impact Statement: Digitalisation is transforming biodiversity conservation, offering new opportunities for research, governance and public engagement. Herbarium digitisation, for example, enables large‐scale access to plant data, supporting conservation, restoration and sustainable use. However, digitalisation raises concerns about equity, data ownership and benefit‐sharing, particularly for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. This study analyses biodiversity reports, surveys and interviews with experts and participants at the international biodiversity negotiations. It explores diverse perspectives on biodiversity digitalisation worldwide to inform more inclusive and transparent governance, supporting democratic decision‐making, equitable data access and fair benefits distribution across global biodiversity actors. Summary: This study examines biodiversity actors' perspectives on the opportunities and risks of biodiversity digitalisation, with a particular focus on views about herbaria digitisation. Understanding herbaria digitisation in the broader context of governance and digital transformation is crucial as societies become increasingly digitalised and biodiversity actors expand their roles. Ultimately, this study is grounded in the assumption that fostering a deeper understanding of perspectives is essential for enhancing the inclusivity, legitimacy and effectiveness of digital tools in biodiversity action. Our mixed‐methods approach combined (1) semantic analysis of 103 national reports submitted to the Convention on Biological Diversity, (2) an on‐site survey of 510 COP16 participants and an online survey with 61 biodiversity experts and (3) 29 in‐depth interviews with participants at COP16. Statistical and qualitative analyses identified patterns in perceptions and experiences. Findings reveal broad support for biodiversity digitalisation across all country and income groups, particularly for enhancing monitoring, accessibility and decision‐making. The primary risk identified was the potential exclusion of Indigenous Peoples' knowledge. Concerns also emerged about data ownership, data exploitation and biodiversity commodification, necessitating inclusive governance frameworks for equitable digitalisation. While digitalisation presents unprecedented opportunities for biodiversity worldwide, it also raises concerns about deepening inequalities and reinforcing culturally hegemonic knowledge systems. Findings underscore the need for inclusive governance, responsible innovation, digital literacy and equitable benefit‐sharing to enhance the benefits of digitised herbaria and ensure biodiversity digitalisation contributes to global conservation goals without marginalising stakeholders.

Policy coherence is crucial in the 2030 Agenda's transformative ambitions and heralded as of paramount importance to ensure the successful implementation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and climate policy targets. Despite political efforts to achieve policy coherence, apparent trade‐offs and goal conflicts have emerged – even in a proclaimed ‘front‐runner’ country like Sweden. This paper examines the role of ideas in proposing and legitimising policy options and achieving policy coherence in the light of the Swedish recovery debate in 2020 following the COVID‐19 pandemic. Ideas of a green economic recovery put forward in the public debate are examined through thematic text and frame analysis. We show that ideas of a green transition, boosted by economic recovery spending, draw on a synergistic frame in combining social, environmental, and economic policy options, carrying a potential for coherency. However, the absence of a discussion on power, as in who stands to gain what under which circumstances, coupled with an inherent understanding of a temporal hierarchy of policy priorities does not only impact the ability to design coherent policies but may have considerable impacts on the prospects of achieving sustainability transformations.

Transformation studies have been leaning towards the more practical aspects of change processes and have not yet dealt sufficiently with their personal and political dimensions. They are arguably constrained in doing so if they are either overly focussed on systems and how to control them or on individualistic values and behaviours. In this study we show how the actually-occurring societal transformations that people face can be usefully approached through the lenses of dialogical sense-making and critical phenomenology. While distinct, these approaches share a concern with aspects missed when transformation is abstracted and alienated from people’s lives; namely people’s lived experiences during times of change, and the conditions of possibility for these experiences. Dialogical sense-making explores how people create meaning around transformations, through interactions with other people, with different lines of arguments, and as part of broader public discourse. Critical phenomenology engages with subjectivity and lived experience, and with the role of foundational as well as socio-culturally dominant yet contingent structures in shaping our ways of perceiving, experiencing and knowing the world. Through a discussion of insights from these approaches, we show how they offer tools that enable new questions about transformative change as it is experienced and made sense of. Situating analyses of tranformation from within a focus on experience brings us closer to understanding the significance of change processes in people’s lives, and allows for an inquiry into the conditions of experience, including transformative experiences.

Previous research points to leadership as a key ingredient in mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. We adopt a polycentric perspective and use focus group interviews with Swedish actors within the business sector, politics, and government agencies, to analyse participants’ views on what it means to lead, preconditions of leadership, and division of responsibilities, in a context of transformative change. Our results suggest that participants focus on collective dimensions of leadership rather than front-running but see multiple ways of demonstrating climate leadership as being available to actors across governance levels and issue areas. Challenges to these views on leadership include the request for shared rules and regulations, and courage among leaders to enact coercive top-down leadership to handle conflicts and trade-offs. We conclude that polycentric transformative leadership is by default polysemic and will require multiple leadership roles at different scales changing over time.