The great climate change science bottleneck

And the powerful few that control it

Photo by GLOBENCER on Unsplash

In a video of an April IPCC scenario workshop, a panel discussion argued that the IPCC does not have any scenarios it merely assess scenarios. Professor Tejal Kanitkar called it out as nonsense in practice. There are too many (i.e. a powerful few) who design, select, and prioritize scenarios while also being influential authors of IPCC reports.

Kanitkar asked the now new IPCC Chair, Jim Skea, about how this will be addressed in the future at the same time as addressing the deep inequities these scenarios, chosen by a select few, project well into the future.

For her part, Kanitkar and colleagues have argued for an improved framework for making decisions about scenario selection and design. In doing so, the underlying value disputes regarding our common future (if you will), are called out, aired out, and made transparent.

Skea replies by agreeing that the COI problem is substantial and known. He recommended solving the problem by

developing a science of assessing scenarios which would make sure the processes for vetting and looking at scenarios would be fully out there in the peer reviewed literature rather than being part of the assessment process.

In general, research is not an effective tool for resolving underlying value disputes. And it certainly does not promise much for an area of science that busies itself with imagining decadal and centennial futures with no known probability of occurring.

Addressing the underlying problem requires improving the structure and transparency of the political process that is IPCC scenario choice. Hence, the suggestion for an improved framework for decision making.

Improving the transparency will also require a professional cultural shift in the climate sciences that prioritizes publicly accessible conflicts of interest disclosures.

Without dealing with the underlying structural issues, value disputes, and lack of disclosure, a new research enterprise aimed at vetting scenarios for use by the IPCC is apt to exacerbate the existing problems.

Workshop slide

The bottleneck for global climate change research

Global climate change research suffers from a rather significant bottleneck and the symbolic power of the IPCC exacerbates the issue by organizing careers and research trajectories around the development of assessment reports.

A few weeks ago, while taking a look at reported priorities for the next (7th) IPCC reporting cycle, The Honest Broker emphasized the control exercised by a key organization in the choice of scenarios used in climate change science

In its selection and prioritization of scenarios, ScenarioMIP has profound implications for climate research and policy. It is hard to overstate how important the work of this small group is for how we ultimately think about climate and climate policy.

So, on its surface, it looks like 1,000’s of climate change scientists all over the world are going about their merry way researching as they see fit; the “free play of free intellects.” But as was always the case, that very myth hides underlying power structure of the research enterprise.

CMIP

The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), a project of the World Climate Research Programme, is a global bottleneck for climate change projections. Technical documentation of the project describes its influence,

By coordinating the design and distribution of global climate model simulations of the past, current, and future climate, the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) has become one of the foundational elements of climate science

As the US Fourth National Climate Assessment explains, the CMIP model results are standard inputs, “for virtually all work in the United States and internationally concerning climate change science, impacts, vulnerability, adaptation, and mitigation.”

The IPCC depends on the CMIP and activities of the two are closely related.

Because of the importance of the CMIP, decision making about which emission trajectories will be used in CMIP analyses has a profound influence all over the world on how research is conducted and how climate change is understood.

IAMC

The Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC) was created in response to an IPCC call in 2007 for a research organization to lead the IAM community in the development of new scenarios used by climate modelers. It was “anticipated that the IAMC will be the main vehicle for coordinating the work” of the integrated assessment modeling community.

Cointe, Cassen and Nadai (2019, hereafter as CCN), documents the growing interdependency of the IAM research community and the IPCC. CCN explains that the IPCC provides the IAM research community an activity to orient towards,

the unifying principle behind IAM research does not lie in a core theoretical basis, but in the dual ambition to represent complex systems through a combination of disciplinary insights and to provide policy-relevant assessments – but its legitimacy to do so rests on epistemic grounds whose soundness needs to be collectively guaranteed. This distinctive feature of IAM research has largely shaped its collective organisation. It can account, at least partly, for the prominence of collective projects and institutional hubs in the IAM community… The IPCC seems to constitute a similar nodal point for IAM research.

IAM research and IPCC reporting The two activities have become interdependent and reciprocally legitimizing.

ScenarioMIP 

For the sixth phase of CMIP (CMIP6) researchers formed the Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP). The Scientific Steering Committee of the ScenarioMIP consulted with the IAMC Working Group on Scenarios to select scenarios and prioritizations for use in CMIP6 and IPCC AR6.

The idea and processes of the ScenarioMIP was developed during discussions at the 2013 and 2014 Energy Modeling Forum annual invitation only Snowmass workshops, and 2013 and 2014 meetings hosted by Aspen Global Change Institute.

It’s the same people

The table below shows the overlap between those involved in the ScenarioMIP Scientific Steering Committee, those involved in the IAMC Scenarios Committee, and the IAMC’s hub of governance, its Scientific Steering Committee .

Several of these same individuals led discussions on scenario development at the Snowmass meetings and the AGCI meetings. And lead discussions about priorities in scenarios for the next IPCC go-around.

Several of the researchers in the table are identified as of the most influential IPCC authors.

The table also includes those involved in the IAMC Climate-related Financial Analysis Committee, an industry specific committee.

All of the researchers that govern the IAMC through its Scientific Steering Committee are also on the Climate-related Financial Analysis Committee and work directly with the worlds largest and most influential financial institutions.

Three individuals are involved on all four of these committees.

It’s the same people over and over again. This is concentrated power; a handful of people that shape the entire world of climate change research.

This is not a problem that is resolved by a systematic pursuit of knowledge developed through a new research program, as Skea suggests. It is a problem that is addressed through structural and cultural change.

Disclosure for Cultural Change

If you consider IAM scenarios a research industry, the industry leaders are establishing the standards and narratives that drive the demand of their own products.

Mechanisms of accountability for making decisions about scenarios used by the CMIP and IPCC should disperse power in establishing value priorities for scenario selection, making those selections, developing scenarios, and authoring reports.

The IPCC does not make publicly accessible the COI disclosures of its authors. It should.

It is clear that the same researchers that organize, develop, prioritize, and select scenarios for global climate science are doing the same for major financial institutions and regulators. The same people are also authoring IPCC reports.

There should be great concern that the way the world understands the collective climate future prioritizes special business interests particularly, financial institutions.

Meanwhile, funds to support scenario master planning comes in from advocacy organizations.

Sponsors and Partners for the Scenario Forum 2022, a meeting to “inform the use of scenarios in the preparation” of IPCC AR7

A good place to shift the culture of non-disclosure across the climate sciences is within the IAMC and ScenarioMIP. These are important focal point for all of climate change science and improvements at the bottleneck promises to shape expectations of ethical professional behavior across the research enterprise.

As well, disclosure in these locations helps the world understand the business interests served by expertise in this area of science.