Abstract
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is broadly viewed as the world’s most legitimate scientific assessment body that periodically assesses the economics of climate change (among many other topics) for policy audiences. However, growing procedural inefficiencies and limitations to substantive coverage have made the IPCC an increasingly unattractive forum for the most qualified climate economists. Drawing on our observations and personal experience working on the most recent IPCC report, published last year, we propose four reforms to the IPCC’s process that we believe will lower the cost for volunteering as an IPCC author: improving interactions between governments and academics, making IPCC operations more efficient, clarifying and strengthening conflict of interest rules, and expanding outreach. We also propose three reforms to the IPCC’s substantive coverage to clarify the IPCC’s role and to make participation as an author more intellectually rewarding: complementing the IPCC with other initiatives, improving the integration of economics with other disciplines, and providing complete data for policymakers to make decisions. Despite the distinct characteristics of the IPCC that create challenges for authors unlike those in any other review body, we continue to believe in the importance of the IPCC for providing the most visible line of public communication between the scholarly community and policymakers.
Highlights
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which completed its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in 2014, provides the only comprehensive review of climate change science, impacts, and mitigation that draws on a government-sanctioned international body of scholars
We have proposed seven areas for reform that emerge from our experience at nearly every level of organization in the IPCC’s latest assessment round
As an IPCC author, scholars can at times feels as if they were in the policy process, being forced to respond directly to critical government comments based on political sensitivity or even directly negotiating text with professional climate negotiators during the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) Approval Sessions
Summary
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which completed its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) in 2014, provides the only comprehensive review of climate change science, impacts, and mitigation that draws on a government-sanctioned international body of scholars. We assess the scope of the IPCC and the procedural rules governing the drafting of its reports, which reflect the political complexities underlying many issues in climate policy, and which foster an inefficient process that leads to final products that are far from ideal. The authors of this article have been involved in most levels of activity of WGIII and in the preparation of AR5.1 This article draws in part on their personal experiences, assessing the literature on climate change economics (and closely related fields), but some observations and recommendations may be relevant to the IPCC’s coverage of other disciplines and broader issues in climate change science, impacts, and mitigation
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