The geopolitics of expertise at the science-policy interface

Abstract

There are a number of inequalities at the climate science-policy interface. In this paper, we are interested in geographical inequalities in the expertise that composes key scientific and boundary organizations, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in which the majority of scientists are from the global North. To address these inequalities, scientists and policy-makers from Brazil have developed strategies to increase their influence in the climate science-policy interface at the international level. Based on two case studies, one on the Brazilian Panel on Climate Change (BPCC) and another on the Brazilian Earth System Model (BESM), we examine three of these geopolitical strategies: expertise integration, counter-expertise and expertise sovereignty. The first sought to further integrate Brazilian expertise into the IPCC through a national panel that mirrored the intergovernmental one. The second aimed to develop a ‘counter-panel’ that would react to supposedly inaccurate information related to Brazil in IPCC reports drafts. The third sought to develop national expertise so that Brazil could become one of the few countries that do Earth System modelling. As a result, it would become autonomous from global North countries in modelling its own territory and have the results of its model reviewed by the IPCC. We conclude by examining how successful each of these strategies were and the relevance and risks of each of them.