Towards deliberative climate and energy foresight (DECENT)

Basic project information

decent smokeman
© photo: Aziz Acharki (Unsplash)

The purpose of DECENT is to examine medium and long-term future-oriented governmental decision-making in Finland, with particular focus on the formation and impact of national climate and energy strategy. The research project:

  • Identifies and assesses the potential use, non-use and misuse of scenarios and examines scenario-based information of carbon sinks and carbon dioxide emissions in the strategic discussion of climate and energy policy, through cases of national decision-making.
  • Examines the present-day mechanisms of creation and intake of futures knowledge in  governmental decision-making focusing on climate and energy strategies. The project investigates the narrative forms, argumentation and types of alternative futures within the policy documents addressing climate and energy policies, with comparison to mainstream media representations.
  • Proposes, develops and tests a scenario process that acknowledges different viewpoints to enable fact-based, long-term and systematic strategy work that supports national deliberative decision-making.

The relevance of the project stems from the need to a) make societal decisions more environmentally sound, b) avoid scenario work that has little or potentially detrimental impact, c) incorporate the various needs, values and knowledge bases of stakeholders to the discussion of the future, and d) develop scenario works in order to make them useful in environmental planning and decision making.

The DECENT is based on collaboration between Finnish Futures Research Centre (FFRC), University of Turku;  Natural Resources Institute Finland and Finnish Environment Institute. The project is coordinated by Prof. Petri Tapio (FFRC). The main task of the Finnish Environment Institute is to analyse how future is represented in climate and energy debates of the media.

The research project is funded by the Academy of Finland and it is operational during 2019-2023.

Publications (project outputs with SYKE contributions)

Scientific publications

  • Mervaala, E., Lyytimäki, J. 2024. Towards efficient and reliable utilization of automated data collection: Media scrapers applied to news on climate change. Journal of Data Mining and Digital Humanities 13123: 1-12. https://doi.org/10.46298/jdmdh.13123
  • Parkkinen, M., Vikström, S. 2024. Alternative policy narratives of the future of climate change: Analyzing Finland's energy and climate strategy and news reports. Review of Policy Research https://doi.org/10.1111/ropr.12602
  • Vikström, S., Kangas, H.-L., Lyytimäki, J. & Mervaala, E. (2023) Framing climate futures: the media representations of climate and energy policies in Finnish broadcasting company news. Journal of Integrative Environmental Sciences 20(1) https://doi.org/10.1080/1943815X.2023.2178464
  • Lyytimäki J., Teperi A-M., Jylhä K.M., da Silva Vieira R., Mervaala E. (2023). Dark side of resilience: systemic unsustainability. Frontiers in Sustainability 4: 1241553. https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2023.1241553
  • Lyytimäki, J. (2022). Storylines nailing or failing sustainability: Energy, mining and mobility as narrative arenas for societal transition. Sustainable Development 31(1): 170-179. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2381
  • Lyytimäki Jari, Kangas Hanna-Liisa, Mervaala Erkki, Vikström Suvi (2020). Muted by a crisis? COVID-19 and the long-term evolution of climate change newspaper coverage. Sustainability 12(20): 8575. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12208575
  • Lyytimäki Jari (2020). Environmental journalism in the Nordic countries. In David B. Sachsman, & JoAnn Myer Valenti (Eds.) Routledge handbook of environmental journalism. Routledge, London and New York. pp. 221-233.
  • Lyytimäki Jari (2020). Ilmastonmuutos isosti otsikoissa – kirittääkö uutisointi kestävyysmurrokseen? [Big-time climate headlines – does news coverage accelerate sustainability transition?] Yhteiskuntapolitiikka 85(2): 191-196. http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2020040110035

Other publications and presentations

  • Tapio P, Lauttamäki V, Lyytimäki J, Parkkinen M, Rikkonen P, van Rooyen P, Varho V, Vikström S (2023). (Ed). Deliberative, Policy Relevant Scenario Process: Realistic Goal or Mission Impossible? In: Belmas A Empowering Futures – Long-Term Governance, Democracy and Futures Research. 23rd Futures Conference. Book of Abstracts. 14–16 June 2023. Turku, Finland & Online. Pp. 14-15.
  • Tapio Petri, Lauttamäki Ville, Lyytimäki Jari, Parkkinen Marjukka, Rikkonen Pasi, Varho Vilja (2020). Toivottavat tulevaisuudet. Politiikasta-fi -verkkolehti 21.2.2020. https://politiikasta.fi/toivottavat-tulevaisuudet/

Open data

  • Lyytimäki, J. and Mervaala, E. (2021-2023). Finnish Newspaper Coverage of Climate Change or Global Warming, 2000-2023. Media and Climate Change Observatory Data Sets. Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Finnish Environment Institute, Environmental Policy Centre. doi.org/10.25810/n3xc-9577
Additional information:

Leading researcher Jari Lyytimäki

Researcher Erkki Mervaala

Researcher Suvi Vikström

Development Manager Hanna-Liisa Kangas

Published 2019-09-25 at 16:28, updated 2024-06-17 at 16:52

Topic:
Target group:

Project partners

Finland Futures Research Centre (University of Turku)

Natural Resources Institute Finland