Scientific Consensus and Climate Change: The Codification of a Global Research Agenda

Abstract

The 'scientific consensus' which influenced the Framework Convention on Climate Change was carefully drafted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) between 1988 and 1992. In spite of it, there have been divergent national responses and policy controversy continues. The willingness of States to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases appears to be declining. An explanation for this is proposed which stresses the question of whether the nature of the scientific advice as sought and given bears some responsibility for the weak policy response. Institutional and personality factors in the formulation of IPCC advice are explored, as is the policy model upon which advice was given. It is concluded that this model is intrinsically unable to generate decisive environmental policy, but rather invites the institutions of the natural sciences and macro-economics to endow their research agendas with claims to policy relevance through the production of future 'findings'. As this model was accepted by governments, IPCC advice and its underlying 'consensus' cannot be assessed as an example of 'science' failing policy. The Convention was the outcome not of science advising policy-makers, but of a complex process of global and national bargaining in which the research institutions played an active but, in the end, minor role. In the much wider struggle over access to strategic resources, capital, income and power in both senses of the word, the global research lobby successfully protected its own interests. This involved 'government science' taking the lead and adopting an increasingly 'neutral' position so that scientific advice was sought by all the contending parties. Whether the global stabilisation of emissions will be achieved remains to be seen; it is unlikely to depend on more scientific certainty being found first.