Abstract
To what extent has the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) succeeded in its ambition to shape a more diverse environmental expertise? In what ways are diversity important to the IPCC? What purposes does diversity serve in the IPCC’s production of global environmental assessments and thus environmental knowledge in general? These questions are explored by analyzing quantitative demographic data of the latest two assessment cycles (AR5 and AR6) and qualitative data from a semi-structured interview study with IPCC experts. The analysis shows that there have been improvements in diversity in recent years across measures of gender (women comprising 34% of authors in AR6 compared to 21% in AR5), regional representation and the proportion of authors from developing countries (35% in AR6 compared to 31% in AR5). These improvements have not, however, been distributed evenly when looking at the seniority of authors, nor when comparing across working groups, with WGI (the physical science) remaining much less diverse (28% female authors) than WGII (impacts) (41% female authors) and WGIII (mitigation) (32% female authors). The interviews suggest that rather than viewing diversity as a challenge it should be viewed as an opportunity to build capacity. Distinctions between scientific expertise and ‘diversity of voice’ need to be reconsidered in terms of both the substantive and instrumental value that a diverse range of knowledge, experience and skills add to the process of the scientific assessment of climate knowledge. In the concluding discussion, three points are raised: (i) the issue of diversity will probably grow in importance due to the fact that the complex task of transforming society has increasingly come into focus; (ii) the issue of diversity will be crucial for IPCC to maintain and develop its capacity to make assessments; (iii) the issue of diversity should not be reduced to simply a means for improving the process of making assessments, but should also improve the outcomes of the assessments.
Highlights
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 under the auspices of the United Nations and serves as an international expert body that provides regular assessments on the state-of-the-art in scientific knowledge on climate change [1]
To what extent and in what way this call has resulted in more diverse authorship remains to be seen and the following sections analyses the most recent IPCC author data, comparing AR5 and AR6 to give a more up to date perspective on diversity in the IPCC before using the qualitative data taken from a recent interview study to contextualize and deepen the relevance of diversity for the IPCC
One interviewee explained the issue, “quite frankly it was the background of the current [Trump] administration [ . . . ] we looked at it carefully and the drop off was both from the national laboratories, which was quite a big source of nominations for IPCC and for universities which were funded independently”
Summary
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 under the auspices of the United Nations and serves as an international expert body that provides regular assessments (assessment reports) on the state-of-the-art in scientific knowledge on climate change [1]. It has implemented several measures to improve this situation, including an emphasis on increased diversity—in terms of gender, experience and geographical distribution—within the selection of authors and the formation of Task Forces, such as the Gender Task Force, to report on specific ways in which equality and diversity can be increased within IPCC groups and processes Despite this clear evidence of a commitment to diversity—including the presence of a published gender policy [3]—there is little published by the IPCC that explicitly justifies or provides a rationale for the desire to improve diversity. One notable exception to this is on the IPCC’s website section on gender, “To continue to produce leading scientific assessments, the IPCC harnesses the best minds, and utilizes the problem-solving power of diverse perspectives” [4] This view raises crucial questions about the relation between knowledge and problem-solving as well as the reasons and implications of including diversity in the expert assessment. It is hoped that this article prompts a constructive discussion on the issue of diversity within the IPCC and within environmental research more generally
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