The history and future of IPCC special reports: A dual role of politicisation and normalisation

IF 4.8 2区 环境科学与生态学 Q1 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES Climatic Change Pub Date : 2024-08-21 DOI:10.1007/s10584-024-03788-1
Shinichiro Asayama
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Abstract

The special reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have a unique character in IPCC scientific assessment. Their main purpose is to address specific timely issues of policy relevance. This article explores the nature and role of IPCC special reports along the lines of three questions: (1) the history (‘where they come from’); (2) the function (‘what they are doing’); and (3) the future (‘where they are going’). In earlier assessment cycles, special reports were characterised mostly as a direct channel for quickly responding to the request from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The conduct of special reports has been gradually institutionalised to embed its planning in the overall scoping of the entire assessment cycle. More recently, they have become a vehicle to consolidate cross-cutting scientific perspectives and serve the diverse needs of the international policy community, not only the UNFCCC. This historical evolution is, in a sense, the result of striving for greater policy relevance. Special reports have a dual political function—namely, turning into the site or object of politicised debates on science (politicisation) and serving as ‘de facto governance’ with the effect of normalising politically contested ideas (normalisation). This dual function is two different faces emerging from the process into which the IPCC is brought to deal with political controversy. The duality of the two functions also manifests inherent tensions that lie behind the IPCC’s ‘policy-relevant but not policy-prescriptive’ principle. For the future of special reports, the IPCC could reconsider the role of special reports in light of the priority over comprehensive assessment reports, the responsiveness to the UNFCCC request and the selection and scope definition of timely topics. However, there will remain a trade-off between provisional science and lasting political impact caused by the future undertaking of IPCC special reports on any topic.

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政府间气候变化专门委员会特别报告的历史与未来:政治化和正常化的双重作用
政府间气候变化专门委员会(IPCC)的特别报告在 IPCC 科学评估中具有独特性。其主要目的是及时解决与政策相关的具体问题。本文从三个方面探讨了 IPCC 特别报告的性质和作用:(1) 历史("它们从哪里来");(2) 功能("它们在做什么");(3) 未来("它们要去哪里")。在早期的评估周期中,特别报告主要是作为快速响应《联合国气候变化框架公约》 (UNFCCC)要求的直接渠道。特别报告的编写逐渐制度化,将其规划纳入整个评估周期的总体范围。最近,特别报告已成为整合跨领域科学观点和满足国际政策界(而不仅仅是《联 合国气候变化框架公约》)不同需求的工具。从某种意义上说,这一历史演变是努力提高政策相关性的结果。特别报告具有双重政治功能--即成为关于科学的政治化辩论的场所或对象(政治 化),以及作为 "事实上的治理",使政治上有争议的观点正常化(正常化)。这种双重职能是 IPCC 在处理政治争议过程中出现的两种不同面貌。这两种功能的双重性也体现了 IPCC "与政策相关,但不是政策规定 "原则背后的内在矛盾。对于特别报告的未来,IPCC 可以根据综合评估报告的优先性、对《联合国气候变化框架 公约》要求的响应以及对及时主题的选择和范围界定,重新考虑特别报告的作用。然而,在临时性科学与政府间气候变化专门委员会(IPCC)今后就任何专题编写特别 报告所产生的持久政治影响之间,仍然存在权衡问题。
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来源期刊
Climatic Change
Climatic Change 环境科学-环境科学
CiteScore
10.20
自引率
4.20%
发文量
180
审稿时长
7.5 months
期刊介绍: Climatic Change is dedicated to the totality of the problem of climatic variability and change - its descriptions, causes, implications and interactions among these. The purpose of the journal is to provide a means of exchange among those working in different disciplines on problems related to climatic variations. This means that authors have an opportunity to communicate the essence of their studies to people in other climate-related disciplines and to interested non-disciplinarians, as well as to report on research in which the originality is in the combinations of (not necessarily original) work from several disciplines. The journal also includes vigorous editorial and book review sections.
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