ABSTRACT
Uncertainty is at the core of the climate change problem and is often characterised as a super wicked problem by scientists and policymakers. Despite significant scientific advancements, uncertainties in climate change projections remain particularly high with respect to the scale, intensity and impact of climate change. There are deep differences in the ways climate-related uncertainty is understood, communicated and configured in policy- and decision-making, negotiated and translated across spaces and scales and how it is experienced by people in their everyday lives. Introducing the heuristics of the “above”, “middle” and “below”, this chapter argues that theorising about climate-related uncertainty by experts, modellers and policymakers may have very little to do with how local people make sense of climate change and live with uncertainties in everyday settings. This chapter invites the readers to investigate, engage and more importantly, embrace the diverse conceptions of climate change uncertainty by unpacking its material, cultural and embodied practices and politics. These, as the chapter highlights, are preferable to the mainstream tendency to control or eliminate uncertainty which tends to either fail or harm the poor and vulnerable. Embracing these multiple perspectives and experiences is also critical to facilitate socially just and appropriate approaches to mitigation and adaptation that go beyond short-term incremental impacts and address structural change and an emancipatory politics of transformation.
