pathway: Sustainable Futures/Climate Change, Sustainability and Society

Antarctica is one of the four global commons, which are area and resources beyond national jurisdiction. As there is no permanent human population in Antarctica, more-than-humans are the only residents of the region. My research aims to provide a critical ecocentric study of Antarctic law and governance drawing on the rights of nature and multispecies justice discourses and contribute to the legal debate around the exploitation of global commons in the larger context of environmental change. Based on posthuman and decolonial theories, it deconstructs and challenges the very notion of global commons.

Domestic heating is a significant source of carbon emissions in the UK; however, it has been a difficult sector to decarbonise, partially because social barriers have not been adequately addressed. My research will identify social enablers that underpin the decarbonisation of domestic heating in the UK. The pace of change needed is significant, therefore, I will explore the potential for positive tipping points to accelerate non-linear transformation to lower carbon heating. I aim to build on the social theory of positive tipping points and create applied tools to aid more inclusive social interventions to decarbonise domestic heating at scale.

 

Publications

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13412-021-00686-1

My research aims to explore the scope and significance of criminalising environmental damage through the introduction of an international ecocide law. Employing qualitative methods, including ethnography and semi-structured interviews, I will examine current legal practices and gather insights from relevant legal practices and those closer to the ground. This data will inform an in-depth analysis of alternative approaches for criminalising ecocide, with the goal of advancing scholarly and policy debates. Ultimately, my project aims to protect vulnerable communities and nature from harm by developing, reframing and enriching the discourse on ecocide law.

I am a social scientist with focus on migration, the environment, climate change, and governance. My PhD project explores processes of planning for and resisting climate-related relocation in Fiji. I focus on the political and social relations between community members and other actors involved in adaptation and approach adaptation as an issue of political and social struggles. I use a social contract theory lens to understand how community members considered for planned relocation negotiate, develop and formulate their own visions of just and fair adaptation governance through contesting established, normative allocations of rights and responsibilities and pushing for new principles of climate justice.

 

Publications

Fry, C., Boyd, E., Connaughton, M., Adger, W. N., Gavonel, M. F., Zickgraf, C., Fransen, S., Jolivet, D., Fábos, A. H., & Carr, E. (2024). Migrants as sustainability actors: Contrasting nation, city and migrant discourses and actions. Global Environmental Change, 87, 102860. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2024.102860

 

Gini G, Piggott-McKellar A, Wiegel H, Neu F, Link AC, Fry C, Tabe T, Adegun O, Wade C, Bower ER, Koeltzow S, Harrington-Abrams R, Jacobs C, van der Geest K, Zivdar N, Alaniz R, Cherop C, Durand-Delacre D, Pill M, Shekhar H, Yates O, Khan MAA, Nansam-Aggrey FK, Grant L, Nizar DA, Owusu-Daaku KN, Praeto A, Stefancu O, Yee M. Navigating tensions in climate change-related planned relocation. Ambio. 2024 Jun 7. doi: 10.1007/s13280-024-02035-2. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38847970.

 

Kalubowila, Palindi, Buri, Sinja, Lietaert, Ine, Cissé, Jennifer D., Backhouse, Judy, Janz, Teresa, Orendain, Dan Jezreel A., Oakes, Robert, Consentino de la Vega, Rafael, Fry, Claudia, Dietrich, Stephan and Okunola, Olasunkanmi H. (2024). How Can Urban Governance Better Respond to Climate Risks in the Global South? A Multi-Disciplinary Review. United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies.

 

Zickgraf, C., Jolivet, D., Fry, C., Boyd, E., & Fábos, A. (2024). Bridging and breaking silos: Transformational governance of the migration-sustainability nexus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(3). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2206184120

 

Durande-Delacre D, et al. (2023) Integrating Planned Relocation in National Climate Action Five key insights for consideration by governments and policymakers. UNU-EHS Policy Brief. Bonn.

 

Olsson, L, Jerneck A, Fry C, Habib A.B. 2023. Civil Society and Social Integration of Asylum Seekers: The ‘Strength of Weak Ties’ and the Dynamics of ‘Strategic Action Fields’.Social Sciences 12: 403

 

Fry C and Islar M (2021) Horizontal Local Governance and Social Inclusion: The Case of Municipality-Civil Society Engagement During Refugee Reception in Malmö, Sweden. Front. Polit. Sci. 3:643134

My research explores the diverse ways in which publics engage with energy, with a view to delivering citizen-led research that contributes to the development of just energy transitions. I am interested in how citizens are implicated within energy systems, how they conceptualise these engagements and how these conceptualisations may change over time. The aim is to use this knowledge to consider how diverse engagements implicate regional, and broader, energy transition decision making. Utilising mixed-method, deliberative methodologies (deliberative mapping and longitudinal profiles) I hope to generate new ways of thinking about public engagement and appraisal of energy futures.

My research focuses on sustainable food consumption, in particular the transition towards alternative meat (e.g., plant-based meat and cell-cultured meat). I will be using a combination of Psychology and Geography approaches (e.g., the concept of “foodscape”) to examine the contextual and socio-psychological drivers and barriers behind consumption of alternative meat, and will also design and test behavioural interventions to encourage consumer acceptance of these novel food products. The research projects will involve qualitative studies and quantitative methods, in collaboration with multiple public and private partners to inform both future research and policies.

Publications:
Toy, S., Whitmarsh, L., Mitev, K., Gan, Y.S., Player, L., McGuicken, T., Thorman, D., Wilson, M., Graham, K., Hayden, N. (2023). Motivating a low-carbon workforce – Insights from Cornwall Council. CAST Briefing Paper 18. https://cast.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/the-centre-for-climate-change-and-social-transformations-CAST-briefing-18-motivating-low-carbon-behaviours-in-the-workplace-insights-from-cornwall-council-3.pdf.pdf

I am interested in food waste, technology and gender, and how objects and systems affect our food waste practices. I will be taking a case study of the fridge and looking at 1) how the fridge evolved to what it is today, 2) how people are using it now and 3) what claims are being made about the future of the fridge, and by whom. I hope to uncover whether food waste was factored into the modern design of the fridge, and to what extent the fridge has agency in our household food waste.

 

The contemporary food system is both a driver of climate change and vulnerable to the changing climate. But what does a healthy, sustainable and climate-resilient food system in the UK really look like? And how can our collective imaginary of future food systems help bring about the transformational changes that are needed?

Using creative methodologies, such as photo elicitation, this project will allow me to combine my interests in climate change, agriculture and photography to co-produce imaginaries of the UK’s future food system, from production to consumption.

 

Achieving net zero requires radical and transformative action in a short timeframe with no prior precedents for a systemic transformation at this scale and speed. I am interested in how transitions can be accelerated, while taking into account that fundamentally this is a social and not just a technological or economic transformation. My research will explore how acceleration of transitions is enabled or constrained by focusing on the challenges of retrofitting UK homes. Current climate change targets will not be met without the near-complete decarbonisation of the housing stock, while achieving it also offers numerous societal co-benefits.

Social scientists have become increasingly interested in human-environment interactions. Alongside this, policy instruments are grappling with how sustainability and human wellbeing can be simultaneously enhanced. My research aims to further the concept of relational wellbeing to connect ideas around stewardship, care and empathy. Using qualitative research methods – such as walking interviews and photo-elicitation workshops – I will analyse how resource-users and the public, more generally, experience blue-green spaces and the impact this has on their relational wellbeing. This research aims to contribute new knowledge on human-environment interdependency and how sustainability and wellbeing can be fostered for those interacting with blue-green spaces.