Going beyond science-policy interaction? An analysis of views among intergovernmental panel on climate change actors

ABSTRACT

Scholarly literature on science-policy interaction is typically divided between advocating that science and policy need to be brought closer together or separated. In a recent article in this journal, Sundqvist and colleagues [Sundqvist et al. (2018) Oneworld or two? Science–policy interactions in the climate field, Critical Policy Studies, 12:4, 448–468] proposed a typology that structures this debate. We use their typology to conduct a text analysis on empirical material from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) internal consultation on its future. We find that science-policy practitioners are not as divided as the scholarly debate. Moreover, while the typology is a powerful tool in unearthing differences in opinion regarding science-policy interaction, it comes at the price of reductionism. We suggest that a continuum, instead of separate boxes, helps visualize the large spectrum of ideas. However, regardless of type of typology, it is important that the discussion goes beyond the relationship between science and policy, and beyond an unconstructive battle between extremes. It is neither possible nor normatively desirable to demarcate ‘science’, ‘policy’ and other actors. Whilst this discussion is of central importance to the IPCC, greater focus should be put on its relationship with society.

KEYWORDS:

• Science-policy interaction
• climate regime
• expertise
• IPCC
• policy-relevant knowledge

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. They would also like to thank those colleagues who provided comments on earlier drafts of the paper, and in particular Göran Sundqvist for his constructive criticism and feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary Materials

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. One example of this is the UNFCCC Structured Expert Dialog https://unfccc.int/topics/science/workstreams/periodic-review/the-structured-expert-dialog-the-2013-2015-review.

2. See Supplementary Material 1 for full details of these questions, including guiding themes, and also a more detailed description of the process of the consultation.

3. https://archive.ipcc.ch/organization/future.shtml .

4. Here we can place Sundqvist and colleagues themselves as they argue that the processes of separation and integration in practice are not opposites. Indeed, they use the typology as a tool to show that the scholarly literature is torn, and to call for a more nuanced debate.

5. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.

Additional information

Funding

This work was in part supported by the Swedish Energy Agency under Grant 37744-1 ‘International Climate Politics’.

Notes on contributors

Terese Thoni

Terese Thoni is a PhD Student in Environmental Science at Lund University. Terese investigates the role of science in international climate politics. She has attended a number of international climate change negotiations, both in her role as researcher and as practitioner.

Jasmine E. Livingston

Dr. Jasmine E. Livingston is a post-doctoral fellow at Lund University Center for Environmental and Climate Research with research interests in science-policy interactions and the politics of knowledge, particularly in the context of international climate and environmental politics.