A Pressing Need to Engage with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: The Role of SEA Scholars in Syntheses of Social Science Climate Research

Abstract

ABSTRACTMomentum is building in the global effort to tackle climate change. Climate regulations and low-carbon technological advances are seen as an inevitable part of the twenty-first-century and of humanity's future [Falkner 2016. “The Paris Agreement and the New Logic of International Climate Politics.” International Affairs 92 (5): 1107–1125. doi:10.1111/1468-2346.12708]. We have seen the momentous Paris Agreement, widespread mobilisation in civil society and, much to our surprise, even the financial sector authorities appear to have experienced a moment of partial enlightenment. While finance has historically been recalcitrant, at best, on climate change, investment in low-carbon energy has risen rapidly and now exceeds an annual US$600 billion [IEA 2019. “World Energy Investment 2019.” International Energy Agency (IEA), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). https://www.iea.org/wei2019, 31]. Yet this needs to rise to US$1.6 trillion per year – equivalent to an increase of US$114 million every hour – if we are to achieve the ambitions of the Paris Agreement (Ibid.). So investment and finance remain as key hurdles on the pathway to keeping global warming below two degrees Celsius.