One world or two? Science–policy interactions in the climate field

Critical Policy Studies

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.

Victoria Institute of Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University, Melbourne, 2013

This workshop report contributes to the 2013 Victoria University Research Development Grant project Exploring science-policy links for the new generation of climate change scenarios. It reports on a workshop held on 22 November 2013 in Melbourne. Suggested citation Bodman, R.W., Young, C. and Jones, R.N. (2014) Workshop report-The science policy nexus: assessing climate policy in an imperfect world. A report for the VU RDG project Exploring science-policy links for the new generation of climate change scenarios,

2018

The rise of climate change as an issue of global concern has rested on scientific representation and understanding of the causes and impacts of, and responses to climatic change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in particular, has been central to how climate change has become known as a global political problem. This thesis aims to critically examine the production, negotiation, and stabilisation of policy-relevant knowledge in international climate politics. It takes the IPCC as a global stage on which the knowledge politics of climate change plays out, drawing attention to the performative interactions which shape the relationship between knowledge production processes and policy making at the global level. Informed by social constructivist accounts, particularly from within the social studies of science, this thesis builds on the notion that science and politics can never be truly separated from each other, rather, they are co-produced. In turn politics is no...

2011

Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 2000

The development of an international climate policy builds on national policy perspectives. These are dependent on the perceived risks of climate change, socio-economic and cultural characteristics of nations and regions involved, and technical feasibility of policy measures. Scientific and technological research support the policy making process about these issues. The perspectives of the scientific community and the policy makers differ and as a consequence communication is often troublesome. Knowledge construction and utilization under such circumstances can only be effective if all parties involved engage in a continuous dialogue about causes, effects, impacts and responses. This paper describes a project carried out in the Netherlands. It has as its major objective to articulate a variety of perceptions and positions related to climate change. As a result of the project, policy actors produced five policy options and formulated research questions. The policy options are linked in the framework of a policy life cycle. Research questions focus on the risks of and on feasible social, economic, cultural and technological responses to climate change. As to the policy options, striving for common means appears to be more promising than pursuing shared goals and philosophies.

Our understanding of climate change is dominated by quantified scientific knowledge, with science and politics usually seen as operating separately and autonomously from one another. By investigating a particular fact box in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), this paper challenges the assumption that science and policy can be clearly delineated. The so-called " Bali Box " gained a prominent role in negotiations leading up to the Copenhagen Conference in 2009, as it was widely seen as providing a " fixed point " – a quantified scientific answer to the question of equitable effort-sharing between North and South. This understanding of the Bali Box triggered a backlash, however, when the hybrid character of the box as an assemblage of science, political considerations and moral judgements became evident to actors in the negotiations. The paper employs the notion of boundary objects to analyse the history of the Bali Box, and argues that climate politics will benefit from a richer understanding of the interplay between science and policy. Moving beyond characterizations that place the Bali Box on either side of a clear boundary between the scientific and the political, we suggest focusing instead on what the Box as a hybrid product is doing, i.e. how it simplifies and quantifies, what it covers and what it leaves outside.

University of California International and Area Studies, 2005

This paper will briefly explore a prominent understanding of objectivity in the socio-political sphere and the failures of the scientization of policy. Using constructivist social studies of science and science policy literatures, a framework is proposed that operationalizes the understanding that in areas of mandated science, hybrid discourses are produced that are neither science nor policy. It will be argued that traditional efforts to 'purify' the domains between science and policy may not only be impossible but may also be undesirable. Instead, an interactionist approach that considers the flexibility and interpenetrating relations between these communities can more adequately provide insight into the socio-technical nature of increasingly technical public policy problems (i.e. environmental problems). The last section of the paper proposes a framework that is used to examine the IPCC process.

Ambiente & Sociedade

The socioenvironmental framework that characterizes contemporary societies shows that human impact on the environment is causing increasingly complex changes both in quantitative and qualitative terms. Therefore, while highlighting the complexity of the events and the need of dialogue among science, managers and society, it emphasizes the prevalence of an instrumental cognitive rationality, which generally disregards the interdisciplinary dimension of problems affecting and maintaining life in our planet. The main objective of this work is to analyze factors affecting the connection between science and politics and to overcome those obstacles, emphasizing triggering and mobilizing factors.

WIREs Climate Change, 2018

In this study, we review work which seeks to understand and interpret the place of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) within the science and politics of climate change in the context of a post‐Paris polycentric governance regime and the culture of “post‐truth” politics. Focusing on studies of how the IPCC has sought to maintain a boundary between the scientific and the political, we offer an historical account of “boundary work” within the IPCC which is instructive for thinking, in an anticipative mode, about emerging and likely challenges to the IPCC's position as a science–policy boundary organization. We suggest that the relationships between climate science and policy are undergoing fundamental transformation in light of the Paris Agreement, and contend that the IPCC will need to be nimble and reflexive in meeting new challenges. Growing calls for more “solution‐oriented” assessment question the IPCC's positioning at the science—politics boundary, where...

Current opinion in …, 2010