The IPCC and the new map of science and politics

In this study, we review work which seeks to understand and interpret the place of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) within the science and politics of climate change in the context of a post‐Paris polycentric governance regime and the culture of “post‐truth” politics. Focusing on studies of how the IPCC has sought to maintain a boundary between the scientific and the political, we offer an historical account of “boundary work” within the IPCC which is instructive for thinking, in an anticipative mode, about emerging and likely challenges to the IPCC's position as a science–policy boundary organization. We suggest that the relationships between climate science and policy are undergoing fundamental transformation in light of the Paris Agreement, and contend that the IPCC will need to be nimble and reflexive in meeting new challenges. Growing calls for more “solution‐oriented” assessment question the IPCC's positioning at the science—politics boundary, where it can function to put some policy options on the table, while obscuring others. Recent controversies over proposed mitigation solutions are indicative of likely future challenges. We suggest that by adopting a mode of “responsible assessment,” the IPCC can continue to exercise its world‐making power in a relevant and legitimate fashion

The politics of anticipation:the IPCC and the negative emissions technologies experience

Non-technical summary: In the post-Paris political landscape, the relationship between science and politics is changing. We discuss what this means for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), using recent controversies over negative emissions technologies (NETs) as a window into the fraught politics of producing policy-relevant pathways and scenarios. We suggest that pathways and scenarios have a ‘world-making’ power, potentially shaping the world in their own image and creating new political realities. Assessment bodies like the IPCC need to reflect on this power, and the implications of changing political contexts, in new ways. Technical summary: Following the adoption of the Paris Agreement of December 2015, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has begun to reconsider its role in the climate regime. Based on work in Science and Technology Studies (STS), we reconstruct how the IPCC has historically positioned itself between climate science and policy-making. We then discuss particular challenges raised if the IPCC is shifting along the spectrum from attributing causes and detecting impacts of global warming towards projecting policy solutions, including emerging technologies, by examining recent controversies over negative emissions technologies (NETs). We conclude that the IPCC exercises a ‘world-making’ power by providing new, politically powerful visions of actionable futures, for example, based on speculative technologies of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). The task of providing future pathways poses great challenges to conventional ideals of scientific neutrality. We argue that the growing political demand for pathways, and their political significance, requires rethinking modes of assessment that go beyond expert-driven neutral input. Assessment processes must take into account their political contexts and implications in a systematic way

Who gets to imagine transformative change? Participation and representation in biodiversity assessments

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has been mandated to assess transformative change in order to identify pathways for achieving the 2050 Vision for Biodiversity. Yet, the topic of transformative change raises significant new challenges for biodiversity assessments because it combines scientifically plausible projections about the drivers and trends of biodiversity loss with normative and collective visions of a sustainable world for nature and people. In this commentary, we argue that assessments of visions of a sustainable world should also ask ‘whose values and visions count?’ because different values and visions influence which voices and perspectives are considered relevant for generating scientific knowledge for transformative change. In particular, we argue that this situation requires rethinking modes of participation and co-production in assessments of transformative change: from consulting different groups as potential ‘users’ of assessments to seeing how visions of a sustainable world are represented through the selection of evidence and actors. In other words, assessments need to be less concerned about the inclusion and exclusion of actors, and more concerned about how these actors bring the perspectives of others with them

Stakeholder Engagement in the Making: IPBES Legitimization Politics

Esguerra A, Beck S, Lidskog R. Stakeholder Engagement in the Making: IPBES Legitimization Politics. Global Environmental Politics. 2017;17(1):59-76