Circular relations between climate knowledge and action: a reply to ‘Why do climate negotiations stall? Scientific evidence and solutions for some structural problems’, by Ulrich Frey and Jazmin Burgess

Abstract

In this response to Frey and Burgess, I describe the ‘direct and sustained relationship’ between climate researchers and policymakers that has been created through the Intergovernmental Platform on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment practice and the conscious attempts to link the IPCC and climate negotiations in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Member governments have a central role in the IPCC assessment practice, from outlining the assessment report to approving its key findings. While this creates a shared knowledge base for the negotiation of collective action, it also brings negotiating positions into the approval of the report’s Summary for Policymakers. This negotiation of knowledge has further intensified as the IPCC has become a site for legitimating objects and outcomes from the negotiating process, such as the 1.5C temperature target. Exploring the role of the IPCC in the Global Stocktake reveals how the circle between knowledge and action may be closing, although questions of diversity and in particular the place of the Local Community and Indigenous Peoples Platform in this circle remain.