Unpacking “Common Sense”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) consists of about 190 governments that commission assessments performed by the international climate science community to determine the current state of human knowledge of climate and climate change. As such, the IPCC does not perform scientific research, but, rather, assesses research in the form of published papers addressing topics in climate science related to climate variability and change. However, as the IPCC assessments have evolved (from the first in 1990 to the sixth in 2021, so far), the IPCC has formed a symbiotic relationship with climate science. Even though the goal of the IPCC is to assess the scientific research that is taking place, its high profile, prestige, and interest from governments that fund climate science research has stimulated and arguably accelerated climate science research. This is particularly relevant for Earth system modeling (including the physical climate system plus the biogeochemical components) that will be addressed here to illustrate the influence of IPCC on climate science. One outcome is that enhanced observations of the Earth system from a number of field campaigns have been funded by countries to gather targeted observations to improve the understanding of crucial processes that need to be represented with fidelity in Earth system models. Governments that fund Earth system modeling research want to have results from their model appear prominently in the IPCC assessments to partially justify the funds being spent on developing, running, and analyzing these models. And just as important as getting a model into the IPCC assessment process are the analyses of the model outputs done by the scientists in the modeling groups and other scientists around the world. The products of this process are the papers describing cutting-edge results that use the models to advance knowledge of climate variability and change. Therefore, model developers are competing with other modeling groups around the world to have the best possible models producing climate simulations that are analyzed to produce papers of the highest quality that are assessed in the IPCC reports. An important part of this process is the international scientific coordination provided by the World Climate Research Programme’s Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP). CMIP involves climate scientists from around the world who volunteer their time to organize CMIP while also developing climate models in their respective countries. CMIP started in the mid-1990s for modeling groups to run exactly the same experiments so the response across the models could be directly compared to quantify uncertainty in their simulations of historical and future climate. Because these climate experiments are, by construction, the current state-of-the-art in climate modeling with the best representation of human understanding of the workings of the climate system, the papers that are written based on those model integrations are of primary interest for the IPCC assessments. CMIP has since evolved to include numerous climate science communities that interface with the modeling groups to perform model intercomparison projects to address various compelling climate science problems. Thus, there is a symbiosis between climate science/modeling, the scientific framework provided by CMIP for coordinated climate change experiments, and the IPCC process that assesses papers that emerge from the scientific research done by scientists who desire their work to be featured in those prestigious IPCC assessments.

Climate change is a security problem in as much as the kinds of environmental changes that may result pose risks to peace and development. However, responsibilities for the causes of climate change, vulnerability to its effects, and capacity to solve the problem, are not equally distributed between countries, classes and cultures. There is no uniformity in the geopolitics of climate change, and this impedes solutions.

Facilitating Climate-Smart Investments

Boykoff and Mansfield (2008), in a recent paper in this journal, provide a detailedanalysis of the representation of climate change in the UK tabloid newspapers.They conclude that the representation of this issue in these papers ‘diverged fromthe scientific consensus that humans contribute to climate change’. That is,portrayal of climate change in tabloid newspapers contradicts the conclusions ofthe fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment (IPCC2007). Is it healthy to have the scientific consensus challenged so frequently? Butshould we worry about systematic misrepresentation of scientific consensus? Webelieve the answer to both of these questions is yes. To present regular updates onclimate change issues in the popular press is important because the changes inbehaviour needed to achieve substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissionsrequire a broad understanding of the basic facts. However, if the majority ofreaders receive misleading information, it will be difficult to achieve the level ofpublic understanding necessary to make such reductions needed to avoiddangerous climate change (Schellnhuber

Debate over climate change is nothing new. Scientists have been arguing about whether greenhouse gases released by human activity might change the climate since the late nineteenth century, when Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius first proposed that industrial emissions might cause global warming.1 Fueled by partisan bickering, this dispute now is more bellicose than ever.

The governance of climate change is a transnational legal process as proposed by international legal scholars such as Harold Koh and Jiuun-rong Yeh. In 1998, international society established Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to improve the understanding and consensus of climate change governance in a global scale. IPCC, established by United Nations Environment Programme and World Meteorological Organization under the auspice of United Nations General Assembly, incorporates both individual scientists and government representatives into the institution, in order to shape the global scientific consensus of climate change governance. In the past decades, IPCC has served as one promoter of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and Kyoto Protocol by delivery of several global authoritative scientific assessment reports. Besides the promotion of global climate change convention systems, IPCC has also expanded its membership, strengthened its internal regulation in the past twenty years. From this perspective, the institution of IPCC should be served as a dynamic legal process. Moreover, IPCC is heterogeneous to other international regimes in the aspect of its membership, internal regulation and organizational function. Therefore, to observe and analysis the legal process of IPCC becomes crucial. The thesis is a research based on the abovementioned prerequisites. In order to better sketch the general picture of global climate change governance, this research aimed to answer the following questions: What is the process of IPCC’s making, becoming and functioning? What characteristics does the legal process of IPCC show? What forces have driven the organizational and functional development IPCC? What legal theoretical meaning does the legal process of IPCC hint? And finally, where and how do we locate IPCC within the system of global climate change governance? To answer the questions, the thesis was composed of the following parts. Part 1 mapped the research by discussing the existing literature, the to-be-answered questions and relevant theoretical approaches. Part 2 sketched the historical context of the development of climate change science and international atmospheric research regimes as the background knowledge, in order to describe the origin of IPCC in 1988. Subsequently, Part 3 focused on the organizational process of IPCC by observing its membership, institutional body and working procedure. Later in Part 4, the author categorized IPCC’s organizational and functional development into four historical phases. The author proposed that IPCC’s organizational and functional developments are interactive and mutually corresponding to each other. Part 5 addressed the characteristics of IPCC’s legal process, together with the analysis of the driving forces to IPCC’s making, becoming and functioning. The author proposed that, while climate change served as a scientifically sensitive global issue area, both the political structure and the scientific professionals had served as the driving force to the development of IPCC. Moreover, as the global consensus to govern climate change incrementally grew, demands on the scientific information for climate change governance had also become other driving forces. The paper concluded in Part 6. The author concluded that notwithstanding the legal process of IPCC well echoed Harold Koh’s transnational legal process theory, the example of IPCC had underpinned another possible answer to the question which international legalists have always tried to answer: why nations make international law and obey. The making, becoming and functioning of IPCC had showed that scientific uncertainty to govern climate change served as a more satisfactory answer to why nations develop and obey the norms. Given IPCC served as part of global climate change governing system, IPCC is and ought to be considered a feasible governing model in dealing with climate change, just as administrative branches and courts do in dealing with other issue areas in the transnational legal context.

Communicating Uncertainty about Climate Change: The Scientists’ Dilemma

Introduction to <i>Climate Change Adaptation in New York City: Building a Risk Management Response</i>

Negotiating failure: understanding the geopolitics of climate change

Operationalizing marketable blue carbon

Millions at risk: defining critical climate change threats and targets

A Culture of Neglect: Climate Discourse and Disabled People

Climate change is not the new phenomenon. The palaeo-climatic studies reveal that during the Pleistocene and Holocene periods several warm and cold periods occurred, resulted change of sea level and change in climatic processes like rise and fall of global average temperature and rainfall. The last medieval warm period was observed from 950 to 1350 AD, followed by the little Ice Age from 1400 to 1900 AD. Occurrence of these climatic changes and their impacts are considered due to natural processes that are geological and astronomical. In 1970s environmentalists and some climate scientists pointed that earth’s average temperature is rising linked with the anthropogenic causes of global warming and emission of carbon dioxide through fossil fuels. In late 1980s the problem was discussed in politics and media. To examine and monitor the global rise of temperature and its impacts due to the emission of carbon dioxide an organization of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created in 1988 by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The IPCC released several reports based upon anthropogenic causes of climate change and their impacts. According to IPCC, 2007 report on climate change during the last 100 years the earth’s average temperature has increased up to 0.6 degree Celsius and if emission of greenhouse gases particularly carbon dioxide continues to rise, global temperature will rise up to 5.8 degrees Celsius by the end of 2100 AD. Similarly as a result of this threat of global warming, glaciers will disappear even from Antarctica and Arctic sea will open for navigation throughout the year. Many islands and coastal cities will submerge as a result of sea level rise. In 2004 Canadian Broadcasting T.V presented a documentary with the name “ The doomsday called off” in which leading climate scientists, astrophysicist and geophysicist presented evidences that science of global warming presented by IPCC scientists is incomplete and incorrect based upon computer models and stimulations which are deliberately exaggerated. Many climate scientists have shown disassociation with the IPCC views and speculations on the basis of its doubtful manipulated and exaggerated figures of global warming and some consider it a climate scam. Since then debate between UN pro man-made global warming scientists and anti-man-made global warming climate scientists continue.

Better information on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and mitigation potential in the agricultural sector is necessary to manage these emissions and identify responses that are consistent with the food security and economic development priorities of countries. Critical activity data (what crops or livestock are managed in what way) are poor or lacking for many agricultural systems, especially in developing countries. In addition, the currently available methods for quantifying emissions and mitigation are often too expensive or complex or not sufficiently user friendly for widespread use.The purpose of this focus issue is to capture the state of the art in quantifying greenhouse gases from agricultural systems, with the goal of better understanding our current capabilities and near-term potential for improvement, with particular attention to quantification issues relevant to smallholders in developing countries. This work is timely in light of international discussions and negotiations around how agriculture should be included in efforts to reduce and adapt to climate change impacts, and considering that significant climate financing to developing countries in post-2012 agreements may be linked to their increased ability to identify and report GHG emissions (Murphy et al 2010, CCAFS 2011, FAO 2011).

The number of hot days and nights very likely has increased globally in recent years, according to a special report1 focused solely on extreme weather events from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),2 while the number of cold days has decreased. The future looks similar, the IPCC panel says: If countries continue to increase emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2)—the greenhouse gas produced by human activities in the greatest quantities—deadly heat waves and heavy precipitation events will occur more often. Devastating tropical cyclones, on the other hand, are likely to remain the same or even decrease. A summary report for policy makers was released 18 November 2011 in advance of the February 2012 publication of the full IPCC Special Report Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX). Several aspects of SREX are designed to inform governments and other decision makers struggling to develop climate-change adaptation plans. The report offers adaptation measures that planners can implement to protect human health during extreme weather events. These include “low-regrets” activities that provide benefits now and under a variety of future scenarios, such as installing systems that warn people of impending disasters and improving systems for health surveillance, drinking water, and drainage. This publication represents the first time that IPCC working groups I (which focuses on the physical science basis of climate change) and II (which focuses on impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability) have collaborated on a report, says SREX coordinating lead author Sonia I. Seneviratne, an assistant professor at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich. It also includes several lead authors from the disaster risk management community. “I think the report allows a better integration of information all the way from the physical projections of climate extremes to disaster management and climate adaptation options. This should make it particularly valuable for decision makers,” Seneviratne says. The analysis concludes that extreme weather events will particularly affect sectors closely tied to climate: water, agriculture, food security, forestry, health, and tourism. The severity of human health impacts from climate extremes will reflect how prepared or how vulnerable a community is. For example, people living in areas with rapid and unplanned urbanization, environmental degradation, and poverty are more vulnerable to the hazards of extreme climate events than those living in better-planned, better-protected, and higher-income communities. After a disaster, the summary notes, planners should focus on reconstruction that improves a community’s resistance to weather- and climate-related disasters rather than recreating or even worsening existing vulnerabilities. The report helps untangle some of the confusion nonscientists feel when reading news reports about blockbuster blizzards at the same time the Earth is supposedly warming.3 Gerald A. Meehl, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and a lead author on the near-term climate change chapter for the forthcoming IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (due by 2014), explains that the very nature of global warming exacerbates extreme weather events of all kinds—not just heat-related events. “We know that CO2 traps heat in the atmosphere,” Meehl says. “That causes things to warm up, and warmer air holds more moisture, which means there is more moisture available as a source for precipitation in storms.” Precipitation intensity increases, he says, even though the overall number of storms may not increase. Even in a much warmer climate, Meehl adds, there will still be record cold temperatures and snow storms. However, as the atmosphere continues to warm, “extreme cold will occur less frequently than extreme heat,”4 he says. At least one scientist thinks the SREX underestimates the extent to which human activity affects climate. Kevin Trenberth, distinguished senior scientist in the Climate Analysis Section at the NCAR, says the report “inherently assumes a null hypothesis of no human influence. In reality, many studies have shown otherwise.” Combined with short-term data sets that often contain variabilities and the fact that many models don’t accurately simulate certain extremes such as tropical storms and monsoons, the message would appear to be there is no human influence, according to Trenberth. “The result of the null hypothesis is that the errors from imperfect models and data fall on the side of saying there is no human influence when there really is,” he says. “This is a fundamental issue with the science community as well as public perceptions. . . . The result has been the appearance of overwhelming uncertainties and paralysis of action.” Changes in the mean, variance, or shape of weather probability distributions—or some combination of those three—could mean a change in the number and severity of extreme weather events.