Abstract
Since the adoption of the United Nations Paris Agreement, scientists have been confronted with a difficult question. The needs for expertise have changed. The Paris Agreement is based on a bottom-up approach that, to be successful, requires extending and reinforcing the existing process for including expertise. Better understanding how the climate system works and its impact on societies remains a priority. However, the real challenge for effective implementation of programs that integrate mitigation and adaptation actions is to operationalize existing knowledge across temporal and spatial scales that take into consideration the realities of a range of actors, at the scale at which they operate. This raises the question of whether the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can answer these new needs without rethinking part of its organization. That is the issue this chapter explores, based on the experience of the authors, who work together at the interface between science and policy in the framework of the French Association for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR French platform), as a researcher, engineer or public officer in the French administration.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
The Paris Agreement entered into force on the 30th day after the date on which at least 55 Parties to the Convention (accounting in total for at least an estimated 55% of the total global greenhouse gas emissions) had deposited their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession with the Depositary. This was reached on 4 November 2016.
- 2.
Vasileiadou et al. (2011) conducted a review of the citation rate of the four IPCC reports in the academic literature. Most citations come from the physical sciences (95%) and only 5% from the social sciences, including 2% from economics and 2% from sociopolitical science. This result directly echoes the under-representation of social sciences in the IPCC (Victor 2015); the few social scientists who at present belong to WGIII and focus on economics and CO2 emission scenarios (Hulme and Mahony 2010).
- 3.
The long-standing international cooperation of research on climate has led to a progressive standardization of the WGI procedures, which has not been the case for WGII and WGIII. WGI also has a clear leadership of the expertise on climate change science, whereas WGII and WGIII have to share their field of expertise with other institutions (e.g. the World Bank or the International Energy Agency).
References
Agrawala S (1998a) Context and early origins of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Clim Change 39(4):605–620
Agrawala S (1998b) Structural and process history of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Clim Change 39(4):621–642
Aykut SC, Dahan A (2015) Gouverner le climat? 20 ans de négociations internationales
Aubertin C, Damian M, Magny M, Millier C, Theys J, Treyer S (2015) Introduction. Les enjeux de la conference de Paris. Penser autrement la question climatique. Nat Sci Soc 23(Supp. S3–S5). https://doi.org/10.1051/nss/2015013
Beck S (2011) Moving beyond the linear model of expertise? IPCC and the test of adaptation. Reg Environ Change 11(2):297–306
Beck S (2013) Is the IPCC a learning organisation? New approaches to governance and decision-making, 418
Beck S, Borie M, Chilvers J, Esguerra A, Heubach K, Hulme M, Nadim T (2014) Towards a reflexive turn in the governance of global environmental expertise. The cases of the IPCC and the IPBES. GAIA Ecol Perspect Sci Soc 23(2):80–87
Bjurström A, Polk M (2011) Climate change and interdisciplinarity: a co-citation analysis of IPCC third assessment report. Scientometrics 87(3):525–550
Bodansky D (2001) The history of the global climate change regime. Int Relat Glob Clim Change 23–40
Bolin B (2007) A history of the science and politics of climate change. The role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Burton I, Development Programme United Nations (2005) Adaptation policy frameworks for climate change: developing strategies, policies and measures. In: Lim B (ed) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p 258
Church JA, Clark PU, Cazenave A, Gregory JM, Jevrejeva S, Levermann A, Payne AJ (2013) Sea-level rise by 2100. Science 342(6165):1445
Cody EM, Reagan AJ, Mitchell L, Dodds PS, Danforth CM (2015) Climate change sentiment on Twitter: an unsolicited public opinion poll. arXiv preprint arXiv:1505.03804
Cook J, Nuccitelli D, Green SA, Richardson M, Winkler B, Painting R, Skuce A (2013) Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature. Environ Res Lett 8(2):024024
Cooke RM (2015) Messaging climate change uncertainty. Nat Clim Change 5(1):8–10
Curry J (2011) Reasoning about climate uncertainty. Clim Change 108(4):723–732
Dahan A (2013) Historic overview of climate framing. FMSHWP-2013-39
Dahan A, Guillemot H (2015) Les relations entre science et politique dans le régime climatique: à la recherche d’un nouveau modèle d’expertise? Nat Sci Soc (Supp. 3):6–18
Demeritt D (2001) The construction of global warming and the politics of science. Ann Assoc Am Geogr 91(2):307–337
Devès MH (2015) The question of the real: from science to catastrophe. Res Psychoanal 20. 10.3917/rep.020.0107
Devès MH, Bourrelier PH, Décamps H, Lang M, Le Bars Y (2014) Examen de la méthodologie d’expertise du GIEC (IPCC) sur le changement climatique. Conseil Scientifique de l’Association Française de Prévention des Catastrophes Naturelles (AFPCN). http://afpcn.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/AFPCN_ExamenGIEC_v12dec2014.pdf
Dovers SR, Hezri AA (2010) Institutions and policy processes: the means to the ends of adaptation. Wiley Interdiscip Rev Clim Change 1(2):212–231
Ebi KL (2011) Differentiating theory from evidence in determining confidence in an assessment finding. Clim Change 108(4):693–700
Ekwurzel B, Frumhoff PC, McCarthy JJ (2011) Climate uncertainties and their discontents: increasing the impact of assessments on public understanding of climate risks and choices. Clim Change 108(4):791–802
Franz WE (1997) The development of an international agenda for climate change: connecting science to policy. Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs discussion paper E-97-07. Cambridge, MA: Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Also International Institute for applied systems analysis interim report IR-97-034/August. Environment and Natural Resources Program
Gray I, Venturini T, Baneyx A, Rodighiero D, Baya-Laffite N, Plique G, Ricci D (2013) Mapping IPCC dynamics, Sciences Po, Media Lab. http://www.medialab.sciences-po.fr/ipcc/
Hecht AD, Tirpak D (1995) Framework agreement on climate change: a scientific and policy history. Clim Change 29(4):371
Hollin GJS, Pearce W (2015) Tension between scientific certainty and meaning complicates communication of IPCC reports. Nat Clim Change 5(8):753
Howe PD, Mildenberger M, Marlon JR, Leiserowitz A (2015) Geographic variation in opinions on climate change at state and local scales in the USA. Nat Clim Change 5(6):596–603
Hulme M, Mahony M (2010) Climate change: what do we know about the IPCC? Prog Phys Geogr
Hulme M, Zorita E, Stocker TF, Price J, Christy JR (2010) IPCC: cherish it, tweak it or scrap it. Nature 463(11):730–732
IPCC (1990) Report prepared for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change by Working Group I. In: Houghton JT, Jenkins GJ, Ephraums JJ (eds) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
IPCC (2015) IPCC takes decisions on future work, IPCC press release, 27 Feb 2015, 2015/7PR, URL: https://www.ipcc.ch/news_and_events/docs/p41/P41_closing_press_release.pdf
IPCC (2016) IPCC—Special report on 1.5 degrees. Retrieved from http://www.ipcc.ch/report/sr15/
Jasanoff S, Lynch M, Miller C, Wynne B, Buttel F, Charvolin F, Lambright WH (1998) Science and decision making
Jones N (2013) Climate assessments: 25 years of the IPCC. Nature 501:298–299
Maslin M (2013) Cascading uncertainty in climate change models and its implications for policy. Geographical J 179(3):264–271
Moss RH, Edmonds JA, Hibbard KA, Manning MR, Rose SK, Van Vuuren DP, Meehl GA (2010) The next generation of scenarios for climate change research and assessment. Nature 463(7282):747–756
Oppenheimer M, O’Neill BC, Webster M, Agrawala S (2008) The limits of consensus. Science 123
Oreskes N (2004) The scientific consensus on climate change. Science 306(5702):1686
Paris Agreement, UNFCCC (2015) Retrieved from http://unfccc.int/paris_agreement/items/9485.php
Pielke R Jr (2005) Misdefining “climate change”: consequences for science and action. Environ Sci Policy 8(6):548–561
Pielke R Jr (2010) The climate fix: what scientists and politicians won’t tell you about global warming. Basic Books, New York
Sarewitz D (2011) Does climate change knowledge really matter? Clim Change 2(4):475–481
Schiermeier Q (2010a) IPCC signs up for reform. Nature 467(7318):891–892
Schiermeier Q (2010b) IPCC flooded by criticism. Nature 463(7281):596–597
Schiermeier Q (2014) IPCC report under fire. Nature 508(7496):298
Schrope M (2001) Consensus science, or consensus politics? Nature 412(6843):112–114
Shapiro HT, Diab R, de Brito Cruz CH, Cropper ML, Fang J, Fresco LO, Manabe S, Mehta G, Molina M, Williams P, Winacker EL (eds) (2010) Climate change assessments: review of the processes and procedures of the IPCC. InterAcademy Council, Amsterdam
Skodvin T (2000) The development of an international regime on a human-induced climate change. In: Structure and agent in the scientific diplomacy of climate change. Springer Netherlands, The Netherlands, pp 93–103
Stocker TF, Plattner GK (2014) Climate policy: rethink IPCC reports. Nature 513:163–165
Tol RS (2011) Regulating knowledge monopolies: the case of the IPCC. Clim Change 108(4):827–839
Tollefson J (2013) Study aims to put IPCC under a lens. Nature 502:281
Vasileiadoua E, Heimeriks G, Petersen AC (2011) Exploring the impact of the IPCC assessment reports on science. Environ Sci Policy 14(8):1052–1061
Victor DG (2015) Embed the social sciences in climate policy. Nature, 520(April):27–29
Wible B (2014) IPCC lessons from Berlin. Science 345(6192):34
Zillman JW (2009) Historique des activités climatologiques. Bull de l’OMM 58(3):141
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the French Association for Disaster Risk Reduction, which facilitated interviews and seminars held during the preparation of this article (http://afpcn.org/). We are also thankful to those who agreed to be interviewed and/or to participate during AFPCN study days. We also thank the organizing committee fellows.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Devès, M.H., Lang, M., Bourrelier, PH., Valérian, F. (2018). Rethinking IPCC Expertise from a Multi-actor Perspective. In: Serrao-Neumann, S., Coudrain, A., Coulter, L. (eds) Communicating Climate Change Information for Decision-Making. Springer Climate. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74669-2_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74669-2_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-74668-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-74669-2
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)