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An Evaluation of the IPCC WG III Assessments

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A Pragmatist Orientation for the Social Sciences in Climate Policy

Part of the book series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science ((BSPS,volume 323))

Abstract

This chapter identifies some challenges, strengths and weaknesses of Working Group (WG) III contributions to the Assessment Reports (ARs) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The focus is on the Fourth (AR4) and Fifth (AR5) assessment cycle of the IPCC. For this purpose, the evaluation criteria and heuristic tools developed in Part II are employed, along with the results of the critical analysis of the underlying economics in Chaps. 7, 8 and 9. Evaluating the IPCC WG III contributions in this way will help us identify the appropriate means of improving IPCC assessments. This chapter argues that in the AR4, both the policy-relevance and the transparency of ethically relevant assumptions could have been higher. This may partly result from the adherence to misguided science-policy models. The AR5 was an improvement in these regards, but faced challenges inter alia in terms of (i) considerable research gaps regarding retrospective, social-science policy analysis, and (ii) political disputes over value-laden findings with far-reaching implications for domestic policies. All things considered, however, both the AR4 and the AR5 did a good job. In contrast to some existing criticisms, there is no clear case of a considerable hidden bias in these WG III ARs, for instance towards more ambitious global mitigation goals.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Systematic evaluations of IPCC (WG III) assessments are rarely done. Some scholars at least discuss a few particular aspects, e.g. Victor (2015) and Carraro et al. (2015a, b). Moreover, Sect. 3.3 has already mentioned reports on the overall scientific reliability of the IPCC AR4.

  2. 2.

    See Chap. 6. A more thorough and comprehensive analysis of the problems concerning WG III AR4 and AR5, which cannot be provided in the present book, could reveal additional relevant aspects than those presented in this chapter.

  3. 3.

    Moreover, governments always had the opportunity to co-determine the scope of IPCC ARs, which in general promises at least a basic level of policy-relevance.

  4. 4.

    The Sects. 3.5 and 11.9 of the WG III AR4 (IPCC 2007) at least briefly mention this need.

  5. 5.

    See Edenhofer et al. (2010) for an example of a comparison of alternative scenarios.

  6. 6.

    Another issue is the lack of consistency and coherence between the AR4 chapters in terms of metrics (e.g., top-down versus bottom-up), baselines, basis years, etc., but also between the IPCC WGs and even other climate economics assessments. Because of this latter point, policymakers and the public sometimes seem to have difficulties understanding the results of the IPCC AR4 in comparison with the results of other studies and assessments. Furthermore, the separation between baseline scenarios and policy scenarios is confusing in methodical terms (IPCC 2007, p. 203), not least because there is no policy-free baseline in the real world.

  7. 7.

    Compare this with the Stern Review with its clear-cut messages and crisp, interesting storyline; although, I would not argue that the Stern Review should be the role model for IPCC assessments given my thoughts in Chap. 6 and the lack of rigorous expert review.

  8. 8.

    I interpreted the responses – usually they mentioned more than one issue – within the following categories.

  9. 9.

    For this reason, four respondents preferred or at least appreciated the McKinsey cost curve studies, despite its many limitations, disputable assumptions and uncertainties; see http://www.mckinsey.com/client_service/sustainability/latest_thinking/greenhouse_gas_abatement_cost_curves (accessed 13 Apr 2015).

  10. 10.

    IPCC authors told me about these issues in personal conversations. See also Sect. 2.3.

  11. 11.

    See Chaps. 7 and 8 above, as well as IPCC (2007, pp. 231f) and Stern (2007). Also the WG III contribution to the AR5 states that “CBA may be inappropriate for assessing optimal responses to climate change” (IPCC 2014a, p. 171).

  12. 12.

    See Edenhofer et al. (2012) for cornerstones of such a potential global deal. Despite the need for more bottom-up approaches, the climate change problem is still unresolved and any effective response to this global challenge requires, more or less, global action and global policy coordination (Knopf et al. 2012). The Paris Agreement in December 2015 at least provided a promising framework for such global climate action (see also Chap. 1 above).

  13. 13.

    If this is true, the question is why the IPCC – to the limited extent that is possible for such an institution at all – did not invest more in the development of such a methodology, which may build on the insights and methods developed for the discipline of Public Policy Analysis (see Dunn 1994 and Weimer and Vining 1992). See Sect. 11.5 for a discussion.

  14. 14.

    These are the chapters where one would expect a treatment of such ethical assumptions.

  15. 15.

    Only Chap. 2 of the WG III AR4 mentions a few ethical aspects. Compare this, e.g., with Chaps. 3 and 4 in the WG III SAR (IPCC 1996) or Chap. 2 in the Stern Review (Stern 2007) that explicitly address ethical issues.

  16. 16.

    The problem framing in the WG III AR4 – with its factual focus on the mitigation of GHG emissions (rather than a broader focus on the mitigation of dangerous climate change, as the WG III AR4 title suggested) – does not include a discussion on geo-engineering options for mitigating further climate change, for example.

  17. 17.

    For instance: “[t]he number of studies is relatively small and they generally use low baselines. High emissions baselines generally lead to higher costs” (IPCC 2007, p. 18). Although this is also related to value judgements, Table SPM.6 (IPCC 2007, p. 18) is another good case for discussing the IPCC’s treatment of uncertainty in scenarios.

  18. 18.

    There are also major differences in the kind and degree of uncertainty (e.g., between future economic growth and future population growth), which again could have been more transparent in the WG III AR4. Moreover, if uncertainty of peer-reviewed studies is not made transparent in the ARs, it is hard to see in what sense peer-reviewed studies are so much more valuable than grey literature (i.e., non-peer-reviewed literature, e.g., economic data by the World Bank). Grey literature can be crucial for up-to-date socio-economic assessments as well, but the AR4 was criticised for using it at all. For a deeper discussion of the treatment of uncertainty in assessments, see Swart et al. (2009), Funtowics and Ravetz (e.g. 1990), and Slujis (e.g. 2002).

  19. 19.

    A perfect example is Sect. 6.2.3 of the WG III AR5 (IPCC 2014a).

  20. 20.

    As IPCC authors stated in personal conversation, about 80 % of the literature on climate policy analysis is US-centred.

  21. 21.

    Discussions of procedural issues can be found in IAC (2010) and Beck (2009), abut also in the work by Carraro et al. (2015a, Sect. 4) regarding the general efficiency of IPCC assessments.

  22. 22.

    This is what governmental representatives involved in the IPCC AR5 process told me in personal conversations.

  23. 23.

    See Corbera et al. (2015). In general, as participant of the IPCC plenary session on the approval of the AR5 synthesis report (IPCC 2014b) in October 2014 (Copenhagen), I learned that the tensions between “developing” and “developed” countries are still a predominant and explicit conflict in the IPCC.

  24. 24.

    See http://mitigation2014.org/, accessed 30 Jun 2015.

  25. 25.

    See also Mulkay (1978).

  26. 26.

    For a further discussion on the role of consensus, see Beck (2009), Skodvin (1999), Agrawala (1998), Hulme and Mahony (2010) and Sluijs et al. (2010). “Guaranteeing the scientific reliability of IPCC reports is indeed essential but it does not address the main weakness of the consensus approach: the underexposure of both scientific and political dissent. As a result of this weakness climate science has become politicized over the past decades” (Sluijs et al. 2010).

  27. 27.

    “Expert Review Meeting for the 5th Assessment Report,” Washington, 6–8 August 2012. See http://www.ipcc.ch/scripts/_calendar_template.php?wg = 8 (accessed 30 Jun 2015).

  28. 28.

    See http://unfccc.int/science/workstreams/the_2013-2015_review/items/7521.php (accessed 30 Jun 2015).

  29. 29.

    Source: http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization.shtml (accessed 30 Jun 2015).

  30. 30.

    A recent expert workshop on the IPCC (where I also participated), for example, discussed these issues more comprehensively (Carraro et al. 2015a, b). A more comprehensive analysis and evaluation is also envisaged by a joint MCC-UNEP research initiative on contemporary, solution-oriented global environmental assessments (see http://www.mcc-berlin.net/en/research/cooperation/unep.html, accessed 30 Jun 2015) which I am coordinating.

  31. 31.

    In response to the big IAC Review (IAC 2010) that was conducted after much criticism of the IPCC (see Sect. 3.3.1 above), however, the IPCC reformed its processes and structure to some extent; see http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_review.shtml (accessed 30 Jun 2015).

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  1. Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC), Berlin, Germany

    Martin Kowarsch

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Kowarsch, M. (2016). An Evaluation of the IPCC WG III Assessments. In: A Pragmatist Orientation for the Social Sciences in Climate Policy. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 323. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43281-6_10

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