The discourses of climate change science: Scientific reporting,climate negotiations and the case of Papua New Guinea

This paper analyses climate science as a discourse to reveal how it enables and constrains climate change negotiations and action. Focusing on long-term outcomes projected in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report and the World Bank’s “Turn Down the Heat” reports, this paper examines processes of discourse structuration and institutionalization to identify the dominant discourses which frame climate action. We trace the dominant discourses identified in the scientific reports – Survivalism, Ecological Modernisation and Economic Rationalism – through the Paris Agreement and selected Leader Statements and Intended Nationally Determined Contributions from COP21. From the 24 states included in this analysis, Papua New Guinea (PNG) is developed as a case study to investigate the hybridity and institutionalization of discourses. Even though PNG’s rhetoric and commitments at COP21 express Survivalism, the state’s policy frameworks rarely move beyond solutions found in Economic Rationalism and Ecological Modernisation. This suggests that states strategically adopt hybrid discourses drawn from climate science in line with their positionality, political economy and interests. Understanding how discourses drawn from climate science manifest in national policies has significant implications not only for how science is communicated at the international level but also for understanding different state positions in the global climate governance regime.     

IPCC AR6 WGI报告的背景、 架构和方法

IPCC第六次评估报告(AR6)第一工作组报告(简称报告)中提供了对气候系统和气候变化的最新物理解释,整合了来自古气候和仪器观测的多项证据、过程理解以及全球和区域的气候模拟,记录了气候科学的最新进展.报告旨在提供有关过去气候如何变化的事实,揭示人类活动在这些变化中所起的作用,并根据不同社会经济路径的排放情景对未来气候进...     

IPCC AR6报告解读：气候变化对城市、住区和关键基础设施的影响与适应

IPCC AR6 WGII评估了气候变化对城市、住区和关键基础设施的影响、风险及应对。气候变化对城市影响的程度和范围逐渐增加,全球城市化的过程与气候变化相互作用加剧了城市和住区的风险。通过社会基础设施、基于自然的解决方案和灰色/工程基础设施所采取的适应措施对气候恢复力发展均有贡献,而城市适应差距在世界各地普遍存在。气候恢复力发展需要多方协作、弥合政策行动差距、提升适应能力。评估报告的经验和案例为我国城乡地区适应和应对气候变化风险提供借鉴。     

IPCC AR6报告关于气候恢复力发展的解读

文中对IPCC第六次评估报告（AR6）第二工作组（WGII）报告关于气候恢复力发展（CRD）相关内容进行解读。CRD的概念最初由IPCC第五次评估报告（AR5）引入,AR6在AR5的基础上进行了更新,正式将CRD定义为实施温室气体减缓和适应措施的过程,以支持所有人的可持续发展。新的定义更加强调了公平性原则,并且在评估内容中对不同社会选择进行了细致的描述,增强了CRD的可操作性,也强调了其紧迫性与不可逆性。报告主要从适应的角度阐述了如何在人类系统和自然系统中促成CRD的实现：城市化趋势为CRD同时带来了机遇与挑战,城市化在加剧气候变化风险的同时也会通过带动周边乡村地区的适应行动来推动CRD;保护生态系统多样性有助于保护生态系统也有助于提高其自身的恢复力,但在较高温升水平下部分适应行动将会无法实施。AR6 WGII报告评估显示,比起AR5报告的时间节点（2014年）的评估结论,当前全球CRD行动更紧迫,实行有效的、公平的应对气候变化措施迫在眉睫。     

Including indigenous peoples in climate change mitigation: addressing issues of scale,knowledge and power

Involving indigenous peoples in the development of mitigation measures for climate change presents procedural, conceptual and structural challenges. Here, we reflect on some of these challenges and ways of overcoming them, as suggested by collaborative approaches to policy and decision making. We specifically focus on issues of scale, knowledge and power, and how they interrelate to act as a barrier or opportunity for the involvement of indigenous groups. We argue that multi-scalar negotiations, blended knowledge and power-sharing structures are all necessary to include indigenous communities as valuable partners in climate change mitigation, and we suggest strategies and recommendations for actively accomplishing this inclusion. Examples from recent literature about the inclusion of indigenous communities in different sectors, are used to illustrate and provide evidence of the current problematic and the need for collaborative solutions. Overall, the ideas expressed here, serve as a conceptual framework to better understand and support the inclusion of indigenous communities in policy and decision making processes.     

Authorship in IPCC AR5 and its implications for content: climate change and Indigenous populations in WGII

This essay examines the extent to which we can expect Indigenous Knowledge, understanding, and voices on climate change (??Indigenous content??) to be captured in WGII of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), based on an analysis of chapter authorship. Reviewing the publishing history of 309 chapter authors (CAs) to WGII, we document 9 (2.9%) to have published on climate change and Indigenous populations and involved as authors in 6/30 chapters. Drawing upon recent scholarship highlighting how authorship affect structure and content of assessment reports, we argue that, unaddressed, this will affect the extent to which Indigenous content is examined and assessed. While it is too late to alter the structure of AR5, there are opportunities to prioritize the recruitment of contributing authors and reviewers with expertise on Indigenous issues, raise awareness among CAs on the characteristics of impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability faced by Indigenous peoples, and highlight how Indigenous perspectives can help broaden our understanding of climate change and policy interventions.     

The clean development mechanism’s contribution to sustainable development: a review of the literature

The challenges of how to respond to climate change and ensure sustainable development are currently high on the political agenda among the world’s leading nations. The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is part of the global carbon market developing rapidly as part of the Kyoto response towards the mitigation of global warming. One of the aims of the CDM is to achieve sustainable development in developing countries, but uncertainty prevails as to whether the CDM is doing what it promises to do. Close to 200 studies on the CDM have been carried out since its birth in 1997 including peer-reviewed articles and reports from the grey literature. This review of the literature serves to assess the state of knowledge on how the CDM contributes to sustainable development (SD) including poverty alleviation. The main finding of the review is that, left to market forces, the CDM does not significantly contribute to sustainable development.     

Physical and economic bias in climate change research: a scientometric study of IPCC Third Assessment Report

This study demonstrates that IPCC Third Assessment Report is strongly dominated by Natural sciences, especially the Earth sciences. The Social sciences are dominated by Economics. The IPCC assessment also results in the separation of the Earth, Biological and Social sciences. The integration that occurs is mainly between closely related scientific fields. The research community consequently imposes a physical and economic bias and a separation of scientific fields that the IPCC reproduces in the policy sphere. It is argued that this physical and economic bias distorts a comprehensive understanding of climate change and that the weak integration of scientific fields hinders climate change from being fully addressed as an integral environmental and social problem. If climate change is to be understood, evaluated and responded to in its fullness, the IPCC must broaden its knowledge base and challenge the anthropocentric worldview that places humans outside of nature.     

IPCC第五次评估报告第一工作组主要结论对《联合国气候变化框架公约》进程的影响分析

IPCC评估报告对国际气候变化谈判进程有重要影响,目前正在陆续发布的第五次评估报告已明确作为气候变化新协议谈判的重要信息来源,对讨论2020年后应对气候变化国际合作机制的影响不容忽视。最先发布的第一工作组评估报告基于新的科学观测事实、更为完善的归因分析和气候系统模式模拟结果,进一步确认了气候变暖的事实,发现了人类活动与全球温升之间因果关系的新证据,以及温室气体累积排放与温升响应之间的定量联系。本文通过分析其中一些关键结论可能的政策含义,探讨了这些关键结论对目前国际气候变化谈判进程和新协议等相关问题的可能影响,探讨了科学信息在气候变化决策过程中的作用,以及如何更为科学地理解和利用这些重要结论。     

IPCC AR6报告关于气候变化影响和风险主要结论的解读

文中对IPCC第六次评估报告第二工作组报告关于观测和预估的气候变化影响与风险方面的主要结论进行了解读。报告表明,气候变化已经对自然和人类系统造成了广泛的不利影响,尤其是气候变化下的复合风险和极端事件呈现日益加剧和频繁的趋势。目前,不同地区和部门的关键风险已多达127种,且随着气候变暖以及生态社会脆弱性的加剧,将对人类和生态系统造成更加普遍和不可逆的影响。相对第五次评估报告,本报告进一步扩展了风险的内涵,归纳了8个代表性关键风险,更加全面地评估了5个“关注理由”的风险水平,评估结果有利于加深对于气候变化影响的认识和及时制定行动对策。     

Synthesizing a policy-relevant perspective from the three IPCC “Worlds”—A comparison of topics and frames in the SPMs of the Fifth Assessment Report

The paper investigates topics, emphases, frames and absences in the Summary for Policymakers parts of the three Working Group reports in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report and the Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report. It explores similarities and differences by using various tools of lexical and discourse analysis, combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The main results are these: First, each Working Group’s Summary reflects not only the Working Group’s distinctive mandate but also a distinctive intellectual framing. Second, although there are some significant differences in the emphases given to different themes from the Working Groups, the Synthesis Summary covers the main topics of the three other Summaries, and constitutes a relatively integrated summary of the complete Assessment Report. Third, we find though that the Synthesis Summary centrally follows up the risk framing and language which are prominent in Working Group II but semi-absent in the other Working Groups, as part of constructing a policy-relevant statement from the three distinctive reports. In addition, the Synthesis Summary makes use of linguistic devices which contribute to ‘amplify’ the strength of statements, as part of transferring messages effectively from the scientific context to a policy-maker audience. Fourth, we find that the style and tone of the IPCC Summaries conduce also to important absences and imbalances in emphasis: main victims of climate change (particular groups of vulnerable people) remain virtually invisible in the Summaries, unlike the impacts in nature and ecological systems or the aggregate economic impacts, and correspondingly the challenges, options and opportunities for action remain relatively underdeveloped in the analysis.     

IPCC AR6报告关于不同类型干旱变化研究的新进展与启示

基于IPCC第一工作组(WGI)第六次评估报告(AR6),从干旱的定义和类型、干旱的驱动因素、监测到的干旱变化、干旱的归因以及预估5个方面进行了分析和总结.IPCC评估指出:(1)在全球变暖的背景下,监测到的气象和农业干旱的变化在全球尺度上并不显著,但干旱频发区域呈现不同程度的增加趋势.这种增加的趋势表明,人为气候变化...     

Learning to Adapt: Organisational Adaptation to Climate Change Impacts

Analysis of human adaptation to climate change should be based on realistic models of adaptive behaviour at the level of organisations and individuals. The paper sets out a framework for analysing adaptation to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change in business organisations with new evidence presented from empirical research into adaptation in nine case-study companies. It argues that adaptation to climate change has many similarities with processes of organisational learning. The paper suggests that business organisations face a number of obstacles in learning how to adapt to climate change impacts, especially in relation to the weakness and ambiguity of signals about climate change and the uncertainty about benefits flowing from adaptation measures. Organisations rarely adapt ‘autonomously’, since their adaptive behaviour is influenced by policy and market conditions, and draws on resources external to the organisation. The paper identifies four adaptation strategies that pattern organisational adaptive behaviour.     

Climate policy meets national development contexts: Insights from Kenya and Mozambique

Despite the growth in work linking climate change and national level development agendas, there has been limited attention to their political economy. These processes mediate the winners, losers and potential trade-offs between different goals, and the political and institutional factors which enable or inhibit integration across different policy areas. This paper applies a political economy analysis to case studies on low carbon energy in Kenya and carbon forestry in Mozambique. In examining the intersection of climate and development policy, we demonstrate the critical importance of politics, power and interests when climate-motivated initiatives encounter wider and more complex national policy contexts, which strongly influence the prospects of achieving integrated climate policy and development goals in practice. We advance the following arguments: First, understanding both the informal nature and historical embeddedness of decision making around key issue areas and resource sectors of relevance to climate change policy is vital to engaging actually existing politics; why actors hold the positions they do and how they make decisions in practice. Second, we need to understand and engage with the interests, power relations and policy networks that will shape the prospects of realising climate policy goals; acting as barriers in some cases and as vehicles for change in others. Third, by looking at the ways in which common global drivers have very different impacts upon climate change policy once refracted through national levels institutions and policy processes, it is easier to understand the potential and limits of translating global policy into local practice. And fourth, climate change and development outcomes, and the associated trade-offs, look very different depending on how they are framed, who frames them and in which actor coalitions. Understanding these can inform the levers of change and power to be navigated, and with whom to engage in order to address climate change and development goals.     

IPCC第六次气候变化评估中的气候约束预估方法

得益于第五次评估报告（AR5）以来约束预估研究的迅速发展,观测约束成为政府间气候变化专门委员会（IPCC）第一工作组（WGI）第六次评估报告（AR6）提升对未来预估约束的证据链中的重要一环。IPCC第一工作组第六次评估报告首次利用包括根据历史模拟温度升高幅度得到的观测约束、多模式预估以及第六次评估报告中更新的气候敏感度在内的多条证据链来约束全球地表温度未来变化的预估,减小了多模式预估的不确定性。文中回顾并介绍了IPCC第一工作组第六次评估报告中涉及的几种主要观测约束方法（多模式加权方法、基于归因结论的约束方法（ASK方法）、萌现约束方法）及其应用情况。在IPCC第一工作组第六次评估报告以及很多针对不同区域不同变量的预估研究中,观测约束方法均显示出了订正模式误差、改善模式预估的潜力。相比而言,目前中国在观测约束预估方面的研究还不多,亟待加强观测约束方法研究以及在中国区域气候变化预估中的应用,为中国应对气候变化的政策制定和适应规划提供更丰富、不确定性更小的未来气候信息。      

IPCC第五次评估报告关于气候变化影响的检测和归因主要结论的解读

本文对IPCC第五次评估报告第二工作组报告关于“观测到的气候变化影响的检测和归因”方面的主要结论和研究进展进行解读。自IPCC第四次评估报告以来,气候变化对自然和人类系统影响方面的证据不断增多,尤其新的或更有力的证据表明气候变化已经对许多自然系统（包括冰冻圈、水资源、海岸带以及生态系统）产生了确凿和广泛的影响。同时,在人类系统对气候变化的敏感性方面也搜集到了大量的新证据。尽管第五次评估报告在检测和归因的方法和涵盖内容等方面都有了明显进展,但目前的检测和归因研究在资料、概念和模型发展等方面仍存在着有待改进的缺陷和不足。     

对斯特恩新报告的要点评述和解读

2006年10月,英国推出的由著名经济学家斯特恩爵士领导编写的《斯特恩回顾：气候变化经济学》,从经济学的角度着重论述了全球应对气候变化的紧迫性,强调只有尽快大幅度减少温室气体排放,才能避免全球升温超过2℃可能造成的巨大经济损失,且减排成本并不高。2008年4月,斯特恩爵士再次推出一份报告,提出为实现上述目标构建2012年后国际气候制度的基本要素,这对后续国际谈判可能会产生一定的影响。通过比较分析两份报告的关系和不同特点,对新报告中国际气候制度设计和评价的基本原则,全球减排的长期目标和减排义务的分担,通过资金、技术、市场、适应等国际政策措施吸引发展中国家参与,减少毁林排放,以及政策执行和制度建设等问题进行了评述和解读,其中内涵对深入开展国际气候制度的研究和我国参与国际气候谈判有重要启发。     

对斯特恩新报告的要点评述和解读

 2006年10月,英国推出的由著名经济学家斯特恩爵士领导编写的《斯特恩回顾：气候变化经济学》,从经济学的角度着重论述了全球应对气候变化的紧迫性,强调只有尽快大幅度减少温室气体排放,才能避免全球升温超过2℃可能造成的巨大经济损失,且减排成本并不高。2008年4月,斯特恩爵士再次推出一份报告,提出为实现上述目标构建2012年后国际气候制度的基本要素,这对后续国际谈判可能会产生一定的影响。通过比较分析两份报告的关系和不同特点,对新报告中国际气候制度设计和评价的基本原则,全球减排的长期目标和减排义务的分担,通过资金、技术、市场、适应等国际政策措施吸引发展中国家参与,减少毁林排放,以及政策执行和制度建设等问题进行了评述和解读,其中内涵对深入开展国际气候制度的研究和我国参与国际气候谈判有重要启发。     

An updated assessment of the risks from climate change based on research published since the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) published in 2007 presents the most complete and authoritative assessment of the status of scientific knowledge on all aspects of climate change. This paper presents an updated assessment of the risks from anthropogenic climate change, based on a comprehensive review of the pertinent scientific literature published since finalisation of the AR4. Many risks are now assessed as stronger than in the AR4, including the risk of large sea-level rise already in the current century, the amplification of global warming due to biological and geological carbon-cycle feedbacks, a large magnitude of “committed warming” currently concealed by a strong aerosol mask, substantial increases in climate variability and extreme weather events, and the risks to marine ecosystems from climate change and ocean acidification. Some topics remain the subject of intense scientific debate, such as past and future changes in tropical cyclone activity and the risk of large-scale Amazon forest dieback. The rise in greenhouse gas emissions and concentrations has accelerated recently, and it is expected to accelerate further in the absence of targeted policy interventions. Taken together, these findings point to an increased urgency of implementing mitigation policies as well as comprehensive and equitable adaptation policies.     

Choosing a dangerous limit for climate change: Public representations of the decision making process

This paper examines how the claim of a two degrees dangerous limit to climate change is represented in the public sphere. The cultural circuits model is used to frame a discourse analysis and content analysis of UK news media, popular science books and advocacy literature. This analysis is supported with perspectives gleaned from semi-structured interviews with a range of expert actors. The results show that news reports largely ignore the two degree limit and where it is mentioned it is validated through invocation of anonymous expert knowledge. Discourses which do recognise uncertainties surrounding definitions of dangerous change still support the two degree limit. Primary sources show a rejection of the two degree limit as a division between safe and dangerous climate change. Arguments made by advocates that the concept at least allows the public to debate complex climate science is not supported by the manner in which the limit is constructed in public discourses. The results demonstrate that public representations of the two degree limit idea have not evolved, despite developments in climate science casting doubt on the veracity of the two degree limit. The paper concludes that framing climate policy within the two degree metric is not delivering the hoped for emission reductions and it may therefore be appropriate for public discourses to recognise the role of non-scientific factors in defining how much climate change is dangerous. Such a change might prove an important step in the development of a more participatory debate about climate policy.