In August 2021, while the world was grappling with the release of the IPCC WGI report, a group of activist scientists called Scientist Rebellion leaked parts of the Working Group III contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) prior to intergovernmental approval. Although Scientist Rebellion are not the first to leak an IPCC report, they are the most vocal leaker with a particular political agenda: to generate disruptive climate action by curtailing the carefully orchestrated intergovernmental process of the IPCC. I take this case of science in activism involving the IPCC interface as an example to examine the increasingly intricate relationship between science, activism and responsibility. The salient sense of urgency around climate action, the growing prevalence of the climate crisis narrative in both public and scientific spheres, and the increased policy‐relevance of science‐policy interfaces put strong pressures on (climate) scientists that need to be disentangled to be understood without premature judgment. I show that the leak is symptomatic of the novel responsibility to act(ivism) scientists are increasingly confronted with and I highlight some of the tensions that come with this responsibility. Emphasizing the centrality of the question of responsibility in, and of, science, I discuss the (ir)responsibility of leaking IPCC draft materials. I end on a call for more interdisciplinary attentiveness to the nexus of science, activism and responsibility and the cases in which they become entangled. This article is categorized under: The Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Climate Science and Social Movements The Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Knowledge and Practice The Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Climate Science and Decision Making
The Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage Associated with Climate Change Impacts (WIM) was established in 2013, and its Executive Committee (ExCom) is developing a new five-year workplan. Seizing this opportune moment to assess institutional progress on the issue of loss and damage under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) we address two research questions: (1) Has the ExCom delivered on its workplans to date, and (2) how has the ExCom's progress varied across thematic areas? Drawing on public documentary sources, we assess the effectiveness and timeliness of the delivery of activities across five thematic areas: slow onset events; non-economic losses; comprehensive risk management approaches; human mobility; and finance, action and support. We find that there has been progress across the thematic areas, but that it has varied in pace. Delays are associated with activities from the two-year workplan being moved into the first five-year workplan or being devolved to the more recently established expert groups. Our results also show that decisions from the Conference of the Parties (COP) or the COP serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) have played a critical role in accelerating specific aspects of the ExCom's work. Finally, we note that the ExCom is increasingly relying on its expert groups and their members to deliver many activities. This research advances our understanding of the nature and pace of progress on this issue, and raises new questions about the politics of global climate policy implementation. KEY POLICY INSIGHTS. The WIM ExCom's workplans are characterized by broad goals and are ambiguous about start dates and deadlines. To enhance accountability, future workplans would benefit from clearly defined objectives, outcomes, and timelines. . The workplans do not seem to constitute strong commitments: Parties make use of COP/CMA decisions to strengthen the workplans by mandating specific activities or deadlines, adding new activities and prioritizing among existing ones. . The politics of implementation merits greater attention: wider political dynamics around loss and damage shape the pace of the ExCom's supposedly technical work. One example is the delayed establishment of the expert group on action and support.
Political conflict over climate change loss and damage (L&D) has made it difficult for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to engage with the topic in its entirety, especially in the intergovernmentally agreed Summaries for Policymakers (SPMs). The Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), however, saw the inclusion of the term “losses and damages” in SPMs for the first time. Drawing on evidence from twenty-eight interviews with IPCC authors, reviewers, and L&D experts as well as an analysis of IPCC materials, this article traces the representation of L&D in the IPCC. I suggest that the clarification of different L&D orthographies (“Loss and Damage,” “loss and damage,” and “losses and damages”) through the IPCC Glossary in 2018 paved the way for L&D wording to be consensually approved in multiple AR6 SPMs. Discussing the implications of orthographic choice, I show how L&D orthographies are appraised differently by individuals, depending on their position in the L&D science–policy discourse. Building on insights from science and technology studies and international relations scholarship, I contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the role of language and spelling in reaching consensus at the climate science–policy interface.
Abstract. Defining experiences of climate change loss and damage (L&D) is the topic of contentious debate across the social sciences and humanities. In this paper, we contribute to this debate by making loss(es) from climate change better legible. After detailing the complexity of the L&D debate from both a political and scientific perspective, we turn to phenomenological theory (Martin Heidegger, Tetsuro Watsuji, Bernhard Waldenfels) in order to make sense of climate's presence and the absences generated from changing climates. The phenomenology of loss we develop promises to help account for experiences of climate change that escape more traditional (social) scientific approaches to both economic and non-economic losses. More broadly, we present an alternative approach to applying phenomenology to research in social science (on climate change).
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