IPCC Summary For Policymakers - Support For The IPCC Process

Support For The IPCC Process

The IPCC process has received widespread support and praise from major scientific bodies. In 2001, a joint statement on climate change was made by sixteen national academies of science. The IPCC process was supported by these academies:

The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) represents the consensus of the international scientific community on climate change science. We recognise IPCC as the world’s most reliable source of information on climate change and its causes, and we endorse its method of achieving this consensus.

Some IPCC authors have expressed their personal support for the process that produces the Summary for Policymakers document. Martin Parry, co-chair of the IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report, has said:

The SPM is chewed over for some days (and sometimes nights) by the panel; and it is this process that has sometimes brought criticism from a few scientists who have questioned how much this government involvement alters the meaning of the scientists' conclusions.

I do not think it does; Plenary might alter some nuances, but the key conclusions of the assessments remain intact.

IPCC author Terry Barker has commented on the IPCC process and Summary for Policymakers document:

My impressions of the IPCC process is that it is an open, highly innovative and progressive means to address the issue, namely the organisation of the scientific policy-relevant advice to governments of an evolving, complex and highly contentious topic.

My experience in the 2001 process was that political considerations inevitably play a role in the development of the SPM, since governments will not necessarily agree with the scientific consensus expressed in the initial drafts of the SPM. Since there is always some uncertainty in the scientific findings, reasons can always be found to qualify or remove unpalatable conclusions. Whether the political considerations introduce a large gap between what the authors say in the Report and what appears in the SPM is a matter of opinion.