Adaptation to climate change? Why business-as-usual remains the logical choice in Swedish forestry

The two latest IPCC assessment reports have concluded that knowledge is not sufficient for inducing action on climate change. This study problematizes the issue of going beyond business-as-usual through a study of the forestry sector in Sweden, which is a large economic sector and could be expected to be an early adapter, given that newly planted forest may stand some 70-90 years into the future. Therefore resources, economic motivation in the longer term and environmental foundations for early adaptation action could be expected to exist. This study draws upon the Foucauldian conceptualization of governmentality to explain the particular institutional logics that nevertheless lead to business-as-usual arguments dominating discussion on adaptation in the case of Swedish forestry. The study emphasizes that adaptation must be seen as steered and limited by existing institutional, social system logics, rather than by externally defined “rational” motivations. Efforts on adaptation to climate change must thus be considered in relation to, and seek to change, existing institutionally based motivational and incentive structures, and must thus be conceived through social rather than environmental logics. In fact, social logics may even define the types of actions that may be regarded as adaptations.