(How) Does Diversity Still Matter for the IPCC? Instrumental, Substantive and Co-Productive Logics of Diversity in Global Environmental Assessments

Abstract

To what extent has the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) succeeded in its ambition to shape a more diverse environmental expertise? In what ways are diversity important to the IPCC? What purposes does diversity serve in the IPCC’s production of global environmental assessments and thus environmental knowledge in general? These questions are explored by analyzing quantitative demographic data of the latest two assessment cycles (AR5 and AR6) and qualitative data from a semi-structured interview study with IPCC experts. The analysis shows that there have been improvements in diversity in recent years across measures of gender (women comprising 34% of authors in AR6 compared to 21% in AR5), regional representation and the proportion of authors from developing countries (35% in AR6 compared to 31% in AR5). These improvements have not, however, been distributed evenly when looking at the seniority of authors, nor when comparing across working groups, with WGI (the physical science) remaining much less diverse (28% female authors) than WGII (impacts) (41% female authors) and WGIII (mitigation) (32% female authors). The interviews suggest that rather than viewing diversity as a challenge it should be viewed as an opportunity to build capacity. Distinctions between scientific expertise and ‘diversity of voice’ need to be reconsidered in terms of both the substantive and instrumental value that a diverse range of knowledge, experience and skills add to the process of the scientific assessment of climate knowledge. In the concluding discussion, three points are raised: (i) the issue of diversity will probably grow in importance due to the fact that the complex task of transforming society has increasingly come into focus; (ii) the issue of diversity will be crucial for IPCC to maintain and develop its capacity to make assessments; (iii) the issue of diversity should not be reduced to simply a means for improving the process of making assessments, but should also improve the outcomes of the assessments.

Repairing the scaffolding: women authors in Paleobiology

“…This parallels the geosciences (Bernard and Cooperdock 2018) and STEMM in general (Ginther et al 2016; Clancy et al 2017) in which there has been little progress on intersectional diversity over generations. While some might argue that a paleontologist's identity has little to do with their science, several decades of research proves otherwise (Barjak and Robinson 2008; Phillips et al 2014; Swartz et al 2019; Standring and Lidskog 2021). In his recent book, political scientist Matt Grossmann argues that social science improved when practitioners became more diverse and more self-reflective about their positionality and the questions that arose from their identity-based perspectives (Grossmann 2021).…”

Science for implementation: the roles, experiences, and perceptions of practitioners involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

“…Other research examined issues of gender (Corbera et al 2015 ; Nhamo and Nhamo 2018 ) and disciplinary representation (Bjurström and Polk 2011 ; Callaghan et al 2020 ), as well as the privileging of some forms of knowledge, leading to disciplinary biases (Beck et al 2014 ; Hughes 2015 ; Obermeister 2017 ), the dominance of certain professions (Devès et al 2017 ; Victor 2015 ), and the marginalization of indigenous knowledge (Ford et al 2016 ). The IPCC’s efforts to address these shortcomings have improved Global South participation (Ho-Lem et al 2011 ; Okereke 2017 ), gender, and regional representation, yet some improvements in diversity lag behind, particularly within the working group on the physical science basis of climate change (WGI) and with regard to author seniority (Standring and Lidskog 2021 ).…”

Landing a global report on national territories: the reception of AR6 in France and Switzerland

“…As the SPMs are approved by all the IPCC member states at the end of the assessment cycle, one might think that the IPCC reports' transmission would in principle not constitute a very "politically-sensitive" issue at the national scale. However, while the selection process of national contributing authors has been presented as a "black box" for the IPCC 5 , the diffusion of the IPCC reports to the policy institutions represents another important black box of the IPCC functioning. This crucial question of how reports are disseminated, perceived and used at the national scale has received little attention and needs to be deepened 4 .…”