Alison Lam

My Research

As floods, forest fires, droughts and typhoons cause food shortages, poverty, forced migration and extinction around the world, the global climate crisis has become more urgent than ever. Although the Paris Agreement was signed by all parties at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP21) ten years ago and promised to be the most inclusive and ambitious climate agreement ever with 195 signatories at the time, many have now lost faith in its effectiveness, particularly as goals have continuously not been met. However, the implications of having met these goals to date are devastating, with permanent biodiversity loss, catastrophic human suffering, and complete depletion of natural resources as just a few unavoidable outcomes.

Before it becomes too late, it is essential to determine why the Paris Agreement goals, especially the goal of limiting global temperature rise to no more than 2°C and preferably to 1.5 °C, are believed by many to be unattainable at this point. In this research, theoretical frameworks that will be essential include symbolic interactionism, negotiated order theory and governmentality. For a deeper analysis, it is necessary to study not only the texts themselves, but also the process of creating the texts. Using institutional ethnography and autoethnography, interviews with those who create the texts as well as those who are excluded from the table, and my own experience in negotiating climate texts on a smaller but still global level, I seek to determine some of the reasons behind the lack of progress in achieving the outcomes and perhaps propose potential solutions.