On November 2, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its most ominous climate report yet, warning of irreversible climate change effects and the reality of the worsening environmental situation. Yet to many the report erred on the side of conservatism, and now that the U.S. midterm elections have ushered many politicians who oppose the idea of climate change into both the Senate and the House, the report may have missed the alarmism necessary to enact change for nonbelievers. The IPCC’s past mistakes and resulting international critiques began this trend towards toned-down language, complicating its relationship with international policy.
Small Mistakes, Big Response
In past reports, the IPCC has maintained its scientific focus and has consistently reminded people that humans are to blame for shifts in climate and in ecology. In an interview with the HPR, Harvard economics professor Richard Cooper said that throughout the years IPCC reports have “gotten more sophisticated and longer” and that the IPCC is now “treated more authoritatively than it was initially.” Cooper also emphasized the importance the IPCC plays in mobilizing private research around the world. In its first report in 1990, the IPCC “underlined the importance of climate change as a challenge requiring international cooperation to tackle its consequences.” This statement played a key role in the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a treaty to reduce global warming and to handle the consequences of climate change. Even when scientific data had not yet created a worldwide consensus about climate change, the IPCC emphasized it as a global issue that humans had to remedy.
As it moved forward, the organization took on the responsibility of providing necessary technological and scientific data to create reports for governments and international institutions, employing its resources to collect relevant information so that governments could move forward in their regulatory roles. Cooper said, “It has become the sort of major go-to source of information on climate change, particularly on the scientific developments.” Yet the IPCC also focuses on the social impact of climate change and on mitigation—that is, it also works on more policy-oriented and speculative proposals.
The IPCC’s activity may have peaked in its Fourth Assessment Report in 2007, which “paid greater attention to the integration of climate change with sustainable development policies and relationships between mitigation and adaptation.” Yet the Fourth Assessment Report also provoked scientific and political criticism over many errors found throughout. For example, a 2010 article in The Washington Post wrote that the report incorrectly assumed that the Himalayan glaciers would vanish by 2035. Cooper said, “Some people thought it might have been a typo … it turned out to be a quote from a journal of no scientific standing whatsoever. So that indicated a certain degree of sloppiness.” An article in New Scientist confirmed glaciologists’ anger that the claim was based on a speculative article that was not peer-reviewed. Other critiques on the report focused on other mistakes caused by similar dependence on “grey literature” and unprofessional sources.
Critics used such mistakes to heavily attack the report’s findings. “Alarmist” has become the adjective of choice to describe the IPCC, even though the group’s main message—that humans are responsible for climate change—has remained stable from the beginning. Critics especially jumped the IPCC’s reluctance to swiftly acknowledge the mistake. According to Cooper, the then-chair of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri, “went out on a limb and defended [the Himalayan glacier claim], but all of the scientists, the glaciologists around the world, said it was indefensible.” Even so, Cooper acknowledges that “anything that involves human beings involves errors; even The Harvard Crimson has errors sometimes, believe it or not.” However, Pachauri still should have exercised a certain degree of humility instead of backing the claim up so fervently without proper evidence.
Flubs like these have damaged the IPCC’s reputation and have led it to soften its language. The new report released on November 2 has been called “conservative” by many sources, including The Washington Post, which claimed that its toned-down wording “may actually confuse policymakers.” This is likely a result of the heavy backlash the organization received for the missteps of 2007, and it will be problematic if the IPCC hopes to work closely with policymakers, especially as climate change is becoming a prominent issue for many governments: less than two weeks after the IPCC released its latest report, the U.S. and China agreed to reduce their carbon emissions. Now more than ever, the report will be looked to as a source of data to support policy.
The Fifth IPCC Report
Cooper said that although his general impression of the fifth report was not as conservative as the media made it out to be, he agreed that “the choice of words may be less alarmist.” This more cautious nuance is present in the report’s use of language. For example, specific terms used in the report actually hold numerical meaning, which most people—and probably most politicians—would not know. The Washington Post piece explained the intricacies of the word “likely.” Apparently, the report’s use of the words “extremely likely” to describe the role that humans have played in the warming trend of the earth and its oceans is actually “a term that the IPCC uses to denote a 95 percent or greater probability.
“Extremely likely,” although suggestive of an important correlation, seems to imply a more conservative connotation than a number like 95 percent—especially to describe the reality of human culpability for climate change. As an article on Grist points out, the report definitely evokes blame and a definite certainty that the world is warming and that without change, mankind will face detrimental and long-lasting consequences. However, the IPCC historically has always made these types of claims. What should be sounding the alarm is new supporting data, which is not presented particularly strongly.
As the Post says, the report “is intended to provide a scientific grounding for world leaders who will attempt to negotiate an international climate treaty in Paris late next year.” The data in this report will be used by policymakers when making reforms. This importance makes the act of understating the findings—so as not to repeat the wave of criticism of the fourth report—a questionable endeavor. It also strains the IPCC’s relationship with international policymakers. If it is muffling the data so as not to scare people, it might not be fully trusted to provide legitimate information for future changes.
What’s Missing?
Along with the critiques that pointed out the weak language of the fifth report, many news sources have called for the addition of new ways of presenting information that could help strengthen the relationship between the IPCC and international policy. For example, a CNN article notes that although “the IPCC report gives governments the science to help make policy decisions … the report didn’t estimate a price for global changes.” Governments need to know that the money they will spend on clean energy and other measures to address climate change will be worth spending. Numbers and forecasts are one thing, but providing numerical measures for a viable solution makes the lives of politicians much easier and could be the next step for the IPCC.
Providing an economic frame for IPCC’s claims, alarmist or not, could benefit the future of climate change. As Grist explains, “economic growth will slow as temperatures warm, new poverty traps will be created, and we’ll find that poverty cannot be eliminated without first tackling climate change. … We have the necessary technologies available, and economic growth will not be strongly affected if we take action, the [IPCC] report argues.” Easing the policy process by laying out details for economic benefits would allow politicians and policy makers to turn the scientific language into more the manageable language of costs and benefits.
However, Cooper disagrees. “I think there’s a problem with going too far. It would make the whole task both much more ambitious and much more controversial,” he said. His argument stems from a valid belief in the rapid growth and change of our modern world’s technology. Even if the IPCC tried to tackle economic solutions on top of everything else they handle, Cooper said, “Half a century is a really long time when it comes to technical change in today’s world. … We have no idea what the cost will be because of this technical change.” In a few years, new technology may reduce costs—or perhaps even increase them.
Even for economics professors like Cooper, adopting an economic language may not be an adequate solution to past criticism, since it would mean potentially biting off more than the IPCC could chew. “The IPCC should be a fact-finding and analytical body—and then over to you, policymakers,” Cooper said. Politicians and international policymakers, even with the occasional mistakes that arise due to the IPCC’s hefty informational burden, should focus then on taking action to remedy the IPCC’s most important and most unwavering claim: the earth’s climate is changing, and it is our fault.
Image Source: Flickr / United Nations Photo