Transcript Integrating climate change science into policy

Integrating climate change science
into policy-making processes
Katharine Vincent
Overview
•The role of the IPCC
•On the incompatibility between the availability of the
science and needs of policy-makers
•A vignette to exemplify the difficulties of ensuring science
is accessible to policy-makers at all levels
Background to the IPCC
•Established by WMO and UNEP in 1988
•Does not conduct research: monitors and synthesises
scientific literature on climate change
•Publishes assessment reports based on three working
groups:
•WG1 – physical science
•WG2 – impacts, adaptation and vulnerability
•WG3 – mitigation of climate change
Background to the IPCC
Four assessment reports to date:
•Publication of the first assessment report (1990) led
UNGA to consider a framework convention
•Publication of the second assessment report (1995)
provided input to discussions leading to the Kyoto
Protocol
•Third assessment report (2001)
•The Fourth assessment report was published in 2007
and won the authors a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace
Prize (with Al Gore)
Background to the IPCC
•Synthesis for policy makers-subject to simultaneous expert
and government review
•Every word of the document is negotiated
•How can the output therefore be objective?
What policy-makers must understand
about climate science
•Uncertainty
•IPCC reports in terms of likelihoods (expert judgement
and statistical analysis)
•Virtually certain (>99%), extremely likely (>95%),
very likely (>90%), likely (>66%), more likely than not
(>50%), about as likely as not (33%-66%), unlikely
(<33%), very unlikely (<10%), extremely unlikely
(<5%), exceptionally unlikely (<1%)
Excerpts from the Africa impacts
chapter (WG2, chapter 9)
•Africa is one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change and
climate variability, a situation aggravated by the interaction of ‘multiple
stresses’, occurring at various levels, and low adaptive capacity (high
confidence).
•Agricultural production and food security (including access to food) in
many African countries and regions are likely to be severely
compromised by climate change and climate variability (high
confidence).
•Climate change will aggravate the water stress currently faced by
some countries, while some countries that currently do not experience
water stress will become at risk of water stress (very high confidence).
How to ensure policy related to
climate change is linked to evidence?
•Policy-makers need to have a basic understanding of the
science
•Responsibility of scientists to make sure that the limits
of the science are known
•Knowledge translation (packaging information so that it
is understood)
•Communication channels between policy-makers and
scientists need to be built and maintained
•“Boundary organisations” e.g. SAWS and farmers
•Internal department communication channels and capacity
A story of disaster management
from Limpopo…
National
Political
Responsibility
Minister
Advisory Fora
Inter-ministerial
Disaster Management
Committee
Civil Servant
National Disaster
Management
Committee
Provincial
Disaster Management
Advisory Committee
MEC Disaster
Management
Disaster
Manager
Disaster Management
subcommittee
Municipal
Mayor
Disaster Manager
Mayor’s Disaster
Management Forum
Ward Disaster Management
Advisory Fora
Existing fora to work through in SA
•Government Climate Change Committee (GCCC)
•Agriculture, DEAT, DME, Foreign Affairs, Health, DPLG,
DTI, DWAF, Housing, Arts and Culture, DST
•National Climate Change Committee (NCCC)
•Also includes provincial and local government, civil
society, and business representatives
•(National Climate Change Response Strategy 2004)
Further Reading
Roger Pielke Jr, 2007. The Honest Broker: Making Sense of
Science in Policy and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Sheila Jasanoff, 1998. The Fifth Branch: Science Advisors
as Policy Makers. Amherst, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press.