Who are the green transition experts? Towards a new research agenda on climate change knowledge

Experts play a significant role in shaping global and local norms on how societies should respond to the climate crisis. However, current scholarship on the relationship between expertise and climate change has not fully addressed recent transformations in the field, specifically the emergence and increasingly influential role of what we term “green transition expertise.” We define green transition expertise as a more applied, normative, and contextual form of climate change knowledge that is contrasted with the formalized, pure science of “climate expertise.” If climate experts assess the deteriorating state of the global climate, then transition experts tell states and corporations what they should do about it. We argue that if the social science of climate change knowledge is to further deepen its grasp of the politics of the green transition analytically and normatively, it must embrace a “post-IPCC” research agenda that turns increasingly toward studying the power of transition experts in directing state and corporate climate action. Based on a review of the literature, we contrast the extant IPCC agenda with an emerging post-IPCC agenda along three dimensions: expert cast (who are the experts?), expert content (what do they know?) and expert context (where are they located?). By marking a shift in each of these dimensions, the post-IPCC agenda sensitizes the social science of climate change knowledge to overlooked and increasingly powerful forms of experts and expertise. To facilitate their study, we define six specific areas that require detailed attention as the post-IPCC agenda develops. This article is categorized under: The Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Sociology/Anthropology of Climate Knowledge Policy and Governance > National Climate Change Policy Climate, History, Society, Culture > Ideas and Knowledge