Presentation
The social dimension of change remains a weak point in the energy-climate prospective works that feeds the transition strategies. Today, the rise of these issues on the political agenda is an opportunity to integrate social analysis more widely into the production of energy-climate foresight studies. Although much remains to be done, many experiences exist and can already be used to imagine and implement concrete approaches to richer prospective work. This Study therefore brings together a diversity of these experiences through 12 contributions from practitioners who have been confronted with these issues.
Key Messages
- Avenues to be explored: organize the dialogue human and social sciences and the technical and economic knowledge traditionally used in foresight studies; accept that the qualitative dimension of results is as important as the quantitative dimension, and that not everything can be translated into models; ensure that the social dimension feeds into political debates on alternatives and implementation conditions from the outset (e.g., exploring inequalities makes it possible to rethink the policies to be implemented); go beyond the average individual in order to better represent the diversity of constraints and opportunities for change.
- This overview and the exchanges associated with this publication also indicate the paths to be avoided: an analysis of the social dimension thought of as an isolated brick that would come downstream of the technical work in order to make the technico-economic scenario acceptable or possible, which amounts to a disconnection between technical choices (e.g. future agricultural production) and social dimensions (e.g. food practices), whereas these are interdependent and must be thought of jointly; considering lifestyles solely through the prism of individual action, whereas this concept refers to the collective frameworks that organize and structure them, and which must therefore be changed.
