Climate Change Panel Seeks To Improve Communication, Open Doors To Private Sector

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change seeks to improve its communication to promote its reports, its chair said at a briefing yesterday. Working on its next assessment report expected to be released in five or six years, the IPCC seeks to increase participation of the private sector as a major stakeholders upon which depends the investment to find solutions to climate change he said.

Hoesung Lee, chair of the IPCC, said in a 17 February briefing that the IPCC wants to be more policy-relevant, to improve its communication capabilities about its products, focus on solutions to tackle climate change, and increase the participation of the private sector.

The IPCC is now in its sixth assessment cycle, and Lee said the panel now focuses on the “solution aspect” of climate change issues.

“The time has come … [for] the policy community as well as the scientific community” to develop “clear thinking about solutions,” he said, in particular after the Paris Agreement, adopted in December 2015 at the Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

In putting more emphasis on the solution side of the climate change issues, “we try to be a more inclusive organisation,” he said, and try to increase inputs by experts of developing countries.

IPCC Reaches Out to Private Sector

“The policy community is our primary audience that is the reason why our key product, Summary for Policy Makers [pdf], has that specific name,” Lee said. But the IPCC realised that there is a great number of decision makers in other layers of society. One of those important stakeholders and decision-makers is the private sector and businesses.

Solutions to climate change challenges depend upon how financial resources and related resources will be allocated by the private sector, he said, the business industry and the finance sector. The IPCC wishes to get a more active and meaningful engagement of the business sector into the process of scoping its documents, its review process and the development of its assessment reports, Lee said.

According to IPCC Head of Communications Jonathan Lynn, also present at the briefing, the modalities of private sector involvement are still under discussion. Some options are being considered, he said. For example, governments nominate experts in the scoping process and could be encouraged to include business representatives. Informal meetings could also be organised between IPCC experts and business representatives.

The IPCC is an international body assessing climate change. It was established by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988, according to the IPCC website.

According to the IPCC, the next session is expected to take place in Nairobi on 11-13 April, “when the Panel will discuss which Special Reports to undertake in the coming years and start work on the Sixth Assessment Report.”

The main activity of the IPCC is to provide assessment reports on the state of knowledge about climate change. The IPCC also produces special reports, methodology reports, technical papers, and supporting material. According to the IPCC, “thousands of scientists from all over the world contribute to the work of the IPCC on a voluntary basis as authors, contributors and reviewers.”

IP Rights Very Important, but Strict Policy Neutrality

Asked about whether IP rights are considered by the IPCC when it comes to green innovations to tackle climate change, Lee said IP rights are a very important element in policy decisions.

However, the IPCC is not involved in the analysis of issues from the political and policy specific aspects, he said, adding, “We are analysing policy relevant issues with a very strict mandate” of policy neutrality.

Lynn said the IPCC is an assessment body and not a research body and as such does not do original research. “Everything that we assess in our reports would already be in the public domain,” he said.

The Fifth Assessment Report was released between September 2013 and November 2014, according to the IPCC. Lee said that there is a gap of five to seven years between assessments. He said the next synthesis report could be expected in 2021 or 2022.

In the meantime, several reports should be made available, in a sequential manner, the first of which is expected to be a special report probably issued in 2018, he said.

 

Image Credits: Catherine Saez