If climate governance is caught in a closed loop of doing more of the same, just with greater urgency, the obvious question might be: What defines the boundaries of that loop? Or why are some risks recognised and acted upon, while others remain effectively invisible? The limits of governance In practice, governance does not respond
Why does the response to climate change so often take the same form? Greater political will. More data. Better communication. More ambitious targets. Greater urgency. These are the familiar calls at conferences, in reports, and across policy discussions. Can you learn from within a pattern? From the inside, climate governance doesn’t look irrational. If the
Note: The next seven essays are not a view from nowhere. I’ve spent decades working with governance systems as a sustainability consultant, a strategic adviser, a sectoral representative and now as a researcher. I am a long-term participant in the processes I’m now trying to understand. That position is part of the argument: because what
The term impossible object (or hyperobject) is sometimes used to describe something that exceeds our logic, our available grammar or our institutional reach. Climate change, radioactive waste, microplastics and artificial intelligence feel like impossible objects. It doesn’t matter what we say or try to do about them; they have an essence that exceeds our grasp.
It feels like the ground I am standing on is shifting. I noticed it while having lunch today. On the radio, a report on the Irish government bringing domestic oil distributors to account for price gouging, a sharp practice response to the US/Israel attacks on Iran. I think politics works well in this type of
[Context: Reflections on today’s news story of government acknowledgement that Ireland’s 2030 climate targets will not be met and emerging research on governance transformation.] The stance is one of disciplined doubt. Being curious about what we know, don’t know and what we don’t know that we don’t know. There is a space outside the frame,