scholarly journals The Evolution of Communicating the Uncertainty of Climate Change to Policymakers: A Study of IPCC Synthesis Reports

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2466
Author(s):  
Tomas Molina ◽  
Ernest Abadal
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
The Public ◽  
Level Of Confidence ◽  
Ipcc Report ◽  
Degree Of Certainty ◽  
History Of ◽  
Tackle Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports on climate change have served to alert both the public and policymakers about the scope of the predicted changes and the effects they would have on natural and economic systems. The first IPCC report was published in 1990, since which time a further four have been produced. The aim of this study was to conduct a content analysis of the IPCC Summaries for Policymakers in order to determine the degree of certainty associated with the statements they contain. For each of the reports we analyzed all statements containing expressions indicating the corresponding level of confidence. The aggregated results show a shift over time towards higher certainty levels, implying a “Call to action” (from 32.8% of statements in IPCC2 to 70.2% in IPCC5). With regard to the international agreements drawn up to tackle climate change, the growing level of confidence expressed in the IPCC Summaries for Policymakers reports might have been a relevant factor in the history of decision making.

Climate change and global risk

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Frame ◽  
Myles R. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Temperature Response ◽  
Scientific Uncertainty ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Global Risk ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
The Public ◽  
Scientific Discussion ◽  
Global Mean Temperature ◽  
History Of

Climate change is among the most talked about and investigated global risks. No other environmental issue receives quite as much attention in the popular press, even though the impacts of pandemics and asteroid strikes, for instance, may be much more severe. Since the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in 1990, significant progress has been made in terms of (1) establishing the reality of anthropogenic climate change and (2) understanding enough about the scale of the problem to establish that it warrants a public policy response. However, considerable scientific uncertainty remains. In particular scientists have been unable to narrow the range of the uncertainty in the global mean temperature response to a doubling of carbon dioxide from pre-industrial levels, although we do have a better understanding of why this is the case. Advances in science have, in some ways, made us more uncertain, or at least aware of the uncertainties generated by previously unexamined processes. To a considerable extent these new processes, as well as familiar processes that will be stressed in new ways by the speed of twentyfirst century climate change, underpin recent heightened concerns about the possibility of catastrophic climate change. Discussion of ‘tipping points’ in the Earth system (for instance Kemp, 2005; Lenton, 2007) has raised awareness of the possibility that climate change might be considerably worse than we have previously thought, and that some of the worst impacts might be triggered well before they come to pass, essentially suggesting the alarming image of the current generation having lit the very long, slow-burning fuse on a climate bomb that will cause great devastation to future generations. Possible mechanisms through which such catastrophes could play out have been developed by scientists in the last 15 years, as a natural output of increased scientific interest in Earth system science and, in particular, further investigation of the deep history of climate. Although scientific discussion of such possibilities has usually been characteristically guarded and responsible, the same probably cannot be said for the public debate around such notions.

scholarly journals Welcome to Hydrogen—A New International and Interdisciplinary Open Access Journal of Growing Interest in Our Society

Hydrogen ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-92
Author(s):  
George E. Marnellos ◽  
Thomas Klassen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Open Access Journal ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Ipcc Report

The 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report [...]

scholarly journals The Dynamics of Issue Attention in Online Communication on Climate Change

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ines Lörcher ◽  
Irene Neverla
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Online Communication ◽  
Discussion Forums ◽  
The Public ◽  
Quantitative Content ◽  
Ipcc Report ◽  
Automated Coding ◽  
Issue Attention ◽  
Reader Comments ◽  
Shed Light

Issues and their sub-topics in the public agenda follow certain dynamics of attention. This has been studied for “offline” media, but barely for online communication. Furthermore, the enormous spectrum of online communication has not been taken into account. This study investigates whether specific dynamics of attention on issues and sub-topics can be found in different online public arenas. We expect to identify differences across various arenas as a result of their specific stakeholders and constellations of stakeholders, as well as different trigger events. To examine these assumptions, we shed light on the online climate change discourse in Germany by undertaking a quantitative content analysis via manual and automated coding methods of journalistic articles and their reader comments, scientific expert blogs, discussion forums and social media at the time of the release of the 5th IPCC report and COP19, both in 2013 (n = 14.582). Our results show online public <em>arena-specific dynamics</em> of issue attention and sub-topics. In journalistic media, we find more continuous issue attention, compared to a public arena where everyone can communicate. Furthermore, we find <em>event-specific dynamics</em> of issue attention and sub-topics: COP19 received intensive and continuous attention and triggered more variation in the sub-topics than the release of the IPCC report.

Memories and Expectations of Environmental Disaster: Some Lessons from the Marshall Islands

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Rudiak-Gould
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
Environmental Disaster ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Natural Protection ◽  
Human Habitation ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Public Imagination

The Republic of the Marshall Islands, an archipelago of low-lying coral atolls in eastern Micronesia, is one of four sovereign nations that may be rendered uninhabitable by climate change in the present century. It is not merely sea level rise which is expected to undermine life in these islands, but the synergy of multiple climatic threats (Barnett and Adger 2003). Rising oceans and increasingly frequent typhoons will exacerbate flooding at the same time that the islands’ natural protection—coral reefs—will die from warming waters and ocean acidification. Fresh water resources will be threatened by both droughts and salt contamination from flooding. Although the reaction of the coral atoll environment to climate change is uncertain, it is likely that the islands will no longer be able to support human habitation within fifty or a hundred years (Barnett and Adger 2003: 326)—quite possibly within the lifetimes of many Marshall Islanders living today. In the public imagination, climate change in vulnerable, remote locations is the intrusion of contamination into a formerly pristine environment, of danger into a once secure sanctuary, of change into a once static microcosm (see Lynas 2004: 81, 124). Archaeologists, of course, know better than this: every place has a history of environmental upheavals, and the Marshall Islands is no exception. Researchers agree that coral atolls are among the most precarious and marginal environments that humans have managed to inhabit (Weisler 1999; Yamaguchi et al. 2005: 27), existing only ‘on the margins of sustainability’ (Weisler 2001). The islands in fact only recently formed: while the reefs are tens of millions of years old, the islets that sit on them emerged from the sea only recently, probably around 2000 BP (Weisler et al. 2000: 194; Yamaguchi et al. 2005: 31–2), just before the first people arrived (Yamaguchi et al. 2005: 31–2). The new home that these early seafarers found was not so much an ancient safe haven as a fragile geological experiment—land whose very existence was tenuous long before humans were altering the global climate.

Communicating Climate Change across Workplace and Organizational Settings

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Dixon ◽  
Yanni Ma
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Climate Change Communication ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Change Communication ◽  
Reduce Emissions

Addressing climate change requires attention to a variety of communication contexts. While attention has been paid to top-down approaches aimed at individual-level behavior and the beliefs of the public at large, organizations in both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors are increasingly recognized as integral players in solving the climate change challenges that we face today. For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) characterize the commercial sector as having the highest potential to reduce emissions by 2020, suggesting that meaningful actions aimed at climate change mitigation must come from within organizations. However, the diverse nature of organizational communication poses challenges toward effective climate change communication. On the one hand, climate change communication can occur within organizations, where members’ individual behaviors and beliefs can have a significant impact on an organization’s energy consumption. On the other hand, organizations can communicate environmental issues directly to stakeholders and the public at large—though communication can be complicated by the fact that some organizations benefit from instilling doubt in the science of climate change. The complex nature of organizational-based climate change communication allows members of the for-profit and nonprofit sectors to play an important role in cultivating divergent views of climate change. Future research can help promulgate climate change-related awareness and action within organizational contexts.

Focus on African wildlife protection will grow

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Wildlife Trade ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Wildlife Protection ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Illegal Wildlife Trade ◽  
Ipcc Report

Subject African illegal wildlife trade. Significance A recent UK-hosted conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) and a UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report have highlighted the importance of wildlife and wilderness protection in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and the integral connections between wildlife protection and climate change. Pressure is starting to grow on governments and businesses to protect irreplaceable biodiversity but progress faces several obstacles. Impacts The EU may increase aid for African biodiversity protection as climate change impacts risk increased African migrant numbers to Europe. Growing pressure may encourage institutional investors to divest from fossil fuels towards the renewable energy sector and ecotourism. Civil society pressure could mount to redirect global aid budgets partially towards wilderness landscape preservation. A South African ruling overturning government approval for a coal mine on critical biodiversity-protecting land may set a major precedent.

scholarly journals Connecting the world through local Indigenous Knowledge

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Margaret Sraku-Lartey
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Herbal Medicine ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Sacred Groves ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

This paper focuses upon the importance and value of local Indigenous Knowledge and how it is being threatened in today’s modern world rather than being leveraged to catalyze development. The author specifically calls out three types of Indigenous Knowledge: (1) medicinal knowledge related to human health, i.e., herbal medicine; (2) sacred groves – geographic areas set aside to preserve plants and animals and that can help to mitigate the impact of climate change; and (3) living libraries – communities of people who are also holders of cultural wisdom and history and who are custodians of all knowledge relating to the history of their own community. The author makes a call to action, requesting that scientists, librarians, publishers, and others in the information community collaborate and move forward together to save and build upon global Indigenous Knowledge.

scholarly journals Look to Windward: The Michigan Environmental Protection Act and the Case for Atmospheric Trust Litigation in the Mitten State

2021 ◽  
pp. 275
Author(s):  
Jonathan Coumes
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United States ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Public Trust ◽  
The United States ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Potential Relief ◽  
The Public ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
History Of

Failure to address climate change or even slow the growth of carbon emissions has led to innovation in the methods activists are using to push decisionmakers away from disaster. In the United States, climate activists frustrated by decades of legislative and executive inaction have turned to the courts to force the hand of the state. In their most recent iteration, climate cases have focused on the public trust doctrine, the notion that governments hold their jurisdictions’ natural resources in trust for the public. Plaintiffs have argued that the atmosphere is part of the public trust and that governments have a duty to protect it. These types of lawsuits, known as Atmospheric Trust Litigation, have foundered on the shoals of courts wary of exceeding their powers, whether granted by Article III or state constitutions. The trouble in many cases, including Juliana v. United States, has been standing. Courts balk at declaring that any one actor has the power to affect climate change. Since they usually think one actor can’t fix the climate, redressability is out the window. Even if courts get past redressability, they believe the scale of any potential relief is just beyond the ability of a court to order. The number of lawsuits that have been filed suggests that that reasonable minds can differ, but most judges have found plaintiffs do not have standing before clearing the cases off their dockets. This Note contends that at least one state remains fertile ground for an atmospheric trust lawsuit. Michigan’s 1963 Constitution implies that the atmosphere is within the public trust, and the Michigan Environmental Protection Act, passed to carry out the state’s constitutional duties towards the natural world, does away with most, if not all, of the standing issues that have stymied climate cases across the nation. Motions, briefs, and equitable relief are not the only way to avoid the onset of what could be the greatest calamity in the history of humanity, but in Michigan, at least, Atmospheric Trust Litigation may well be what breaks and rolls back the carbon tide.

scholarly journals All change for climate change

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony R Walker
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
New York ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Ipcc Report ◽  
Single Use

Governments, corporations and individuals all need to take immediate action to help change the global economy toward a circular economy. A circular economy which uses fewer resources and based on renewable clean technologies to help limit global warming to 1.5 °C. The 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warned that limiting global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels would require current greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions to be cut in half by 2030. Yet actions by governments, corporations and individuals are lagging behind. Many countries are failing their obligations made under the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Even the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency set a 50% reduction target of GHG emissions for global shipping by 2050, but this falls short of the IPCC target by 20 years. The United Nations climate summit in New York this week (September 2019) needs to send a strong wake up call to the entire world for us all to change. Change makers like Greta Thunberg has already done that. Individual actions to change consumer behaviour can play a major role to help reduce GHG emissions. Even reducing use of single-use plastics (a petroleum derivative) and incineration can help reduce GHG emissions. GHG emissions from plastics could reach 15% of the global carbon budget by 2050 if not curbed. In Europe, plastic production and incineration emits an estimated ~400 million tonnes of CO2 per year. Therefore, reducing single-use plastic use could curb GHG emissions.

scholarly journals Experimental deformation of deuterated ice in 3D and 2D: identification of grain-scale processes

2015 ◽  
Vol 127 (1) ◽  
pp. 99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J.L. Wilson ◽  
Vladimir Luzin ◽  
Sandra Piazolo ◽  
Mark Peternell ◽  
Daniel Hammes
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Grain Size ◽  
Texture Evolution ◽  
Ice Sheets ◽  
Polar Ice ◽  
Intergovernmental Panel ◽  
Ice Caps ◽  
Ipcc Report ◽  
Polar Ice Sheets ◽  
Ice Sheet Dynamics

Major polar ice sheets and ice caps experience cycles of variable flow during different glacial periods and as a response to past warming. The rate and localisation of deformation inside an ice body controls the evolution of ice microstructure and crystallographic fabric. This is critical for interpreting proxy signals for climate change, with deformation overprinting and disrupting stratigraphy deep under ice caps due to the nature of the flow. The final crystallographic fabric in polar ice sheets provides a record of deformation history, which in turn controls the flow properties of ice during further deformation and affects geophysical sensing of ice sheets. For example, identification of layering in ice sheets, using seismic or ice radar techniques, is attributed to grain size changes and fabric variations. Such information has been used to provide information on climate state and its changes over time, and as the Fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report (Solomon et al. 2007) points out there is currently still a lack of understanding of internal ice-sheet dynamics. To answer this we have recently conducted experiments at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) to collect fully quantitative microstructural data from polycrystalline heavy water (D2O) ice deformed in a dynamic regime. The ice and temperature (–7°C) chosen for this study is used as a direct analogue for deforming natural-water ice as it offers a unique opportunity to link grain size and texture evolution in natural ice at –10°C. Results show a dynamic system where steady-state rheology is not necessarily coupled to microstructural and crystallographic fabric stability. This link needs to be taken into account to improve ice-mass-deformation modelling critical for climate change predictions.

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