IPCC

Climate change poses an existential threat to Small Island Developing States (SIDS). They have played a leading role in raising awareness of climate change on the international stage and advocating for strong climate action, notably through the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). Despite their heterogeneity, they succeeded in building a common diplomatic discourse and influencing strategy, and mobilized political leaders as well as talented negotiators and advisors. Small Island States were a crucial group in the negotiating period up to, during the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21), and for the entry into force of the Paris Agreement. SIDS succeeded to secure their special circumstances as vulnerable countries, demonstrated leadership in raising ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to help secure an ambitious long-term temperature goal of limiting global warming to below 1.5 °C, and advanced the complex debate on loss and damage. Small Island States face major challenges to advance their leadership on climate change moving forward: securing immediate actions for those particularly vulnerable countries and increasing their influence within and outside the climate change negotiations. For Small Island states, the 1.5 °C goal should be considered " the visible part of the iceberg " for their diplomacy in a post-Paris context.

First, this is a really long shot, because of the complexity of the topic.

If you belong to a group of readers who only want to read abstracts, then I only have one sad message for you:

the status of compliance with the commitments defined by the IPCC will not be possible to maintain globally or in countries with the greatest impact on global GHG numbers. There is no way to keep the 2050 safe zone, based on existing goals set up by the most important countries` actions. No doubt the 2030 or 2035 goals are just kind of politicians` promises for their electorate. It's even worse than you can imagine.

Nowhere have I found the existence of comprehensive IPCC commitment countries` plans. Just too many parallel activities that shoot off the target, but at least it's well published. It works for the masses that don't understand it but obediently follow the keywords. Followers = a product of this fast era.

This work is a summary of the papers I have published so far on Academia.org. In the end, you will find we do not have many options on how to solve it all. I present a few basic directions. However, it won’t be effortless, and everyone will experience discomfort. In every possible scenario.

The Fifth Assessment Report of Working Group
II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change was released in 2014. It examines the
impacts of climate change, inherent vulnerabilities
and adaptation responses across the globe. The
Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are identified
as being particularly vulnerable to climate change
due to economic and capacity barriers. This paper
examines the LDCs within the IPCC report to
highlight how climatic impacts, vulnerabilities and
adaptation are portrayed for these countries. It
illuminates a need for a greater focus on the LDCs
by the IPCC and for further research concentrated
on the LDCs in general, in order to enhance the
state of knowledge on LDCs and appropriately
guide related policy.

This article addresses the relationship between science and propaganda using the Climate Change controversy as a study model. The United Nations International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the recognized leader on this model issuing multiple Assessment Reports. This review begins with a discussion of the basics—what is propaganda and how does it work, followed by whether the IPCC adopted or rejected it. Next explored is how propaganda can be seamlessly fused into “report writing” in a way that arouses and makes interesting humdrum details. Some unexpected results emerged from current and historical observation data involving the Greenhouse theory, CO2 sources, ocean pH, sea levels, and ice balances. The final section confronts whether “a point of view” constrains objectivity in favor of outcome. The overall conclusion is that the earth is boringly healthy.

Although it is often stated that the energy consumption in buildings accounts for more than 30% of total global final energy use, only a few studies analyze updated data about the current building energy consumptions or focus on comparing different countries. Similarly, models that predict future trends in building energy demand often use contrasting algorithms which result in diverse forecasts. Scope of this paper is to present and discuss data taken from several studies about the building energy consumptions in US, EU, and BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries and to provide an updated inventory of useful figures. Comparisons among countries are used to show historical, actual, and future energy consumption trends. Data presented by the World Bank, the United Nations Environment Program, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the International Energy Agency are compared with national reports as well as with research studies. The variety of the approaches used in each of the previous sources was considered fundamental to allow a complete review. The paper shows that the total building energy consumptions in BRIC countries have already overcome those in developed countries, and the continuous increase in the building stock of the BRIC countries creates an urgency for promoting building energy efficiency policies in these countries. At the same time, the policies actually adopted in developed countries are insufficient to guarantee a significant reduction in their building energy consumption in the years to come. In the current scenario, at least a doubling of the global energy demand in buildings compared to today’s levels will occur by 2050. To avoid this forecast, cost-effective best practices and technologies as well as behavioral and lifestyle changes need to be diffused and accepted globally.

In this paper we draw on Science and Technology (STS) approaches to develop a comparative analytical account of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The establishment of both of these organizations, in 1988 and 2012 respectively, represented important 'constitutional moments' in the global arrangement of scientific assessment and its relationship to environmental policymaking. Global environmental assessments all share some similarities, operating at the articulation between science and policy and pursuing explicit societal goals. Although the IPCC and IPBES have different objectives, they are both intergovernmental processes geared towards the provision of knowledge to inform political debates about, respectively, climate change and biodiversity loss. In spite of these similarities, we show that there are significant differences in their knowledge practices and these differences have implications for environmental governance. We do this by comparing the IPCC and IPBES across three dimensions: conceptual frameworks, scenarios and consensus. We argue that, broadly speaking, the IPCC has produced a 'view from nowhere', through a reliance on mathematical modelling to produce a consensual picture of global climate change, which is then 'downscaled' to considerations of local impacts and responses. By contrast IPBES, through its contrasting conceptual frameworks and practices of argumentation, appears to seek a 'view from everywhere', inclusive of epistemic plurality, and through which a global picture emerges through an aggregation of more placed-based knowledges. We conclude that, despite these aspirations, both organizations in fact offer 'views from somewhere': situated sets of knowledge marked by politico-epistemic struggles and shaped by the interests, priorities and voices of certain powerful actors. Characterizing this 'somewhere' might be aided by the concept of institutional epistemology, a term we propose to capture how particular knowledge practices become stabilized within international expert organizations. We suggest that such a concept, by drawing attention to the institutions' knowledge practices, helps reveal their world-making effects and, by doing so, enables more reflexive governance of both expert organizations and of global environmental change in general.

This document is a simple consideration for anyone who expects a feasible plan to reduce Anthropogenic GHG emissions worldwide or country-level scale. Unfortunately, it does not exist.

All the considerations were prepared as a result of an in-depth analysis of the data source collection state and processing of them, which serves to define Anthropogenic GHG emissions and their subsequent interpretations in scientific fields, for policy-makers to reduce the impact of Anthropogenic emissions and to the non-professional public or media that they just blindly follow something that seems to be a fact. However, it is often very far from the fact.
It is not possible to make a change without a clearly defined plan. There is a mess in that. This is the state where we are as a civilization. We shoot in the dark only.

Every plan needs an authority responsible for its creation, implementation, evaluation of the running processes and application of sanctions for non-compliance. You are wrong if you think it is the current UN (United Nations).
Keep this document open for discussion.
The online discussion is available here:
https://www.academia.edu/s/bcbe1d91b1?source=work

The IPCC carbon budget concludes that changes in atmospheric CO2 are driven by fossil fuel emissions on a year by year basis. A testable implication of the validity of this carbon budget is that changes in atmospheric CO2 should be correlated with fossil fuel emissions at an annual time scale net of long term trends. A test of this relationship with insitu CO2 data from Mauna Loa 1958-2016 and flask CO2 data from twenty three stations around the world 1967-2015 is presented. The test fails to show that annual changes in atmospheric CO2 levels can be attributed to annual emissions. The finding is consistent with prior studies that found no evidence to relate the rate of warming to emissions and they imply that the IPCC carbon budget is flawed possibly because of insufficient attention to uncertainty, excessive reliance on net flows, and the use of circular reasoning that subsumes a role for fossil fuel emissions in the observed increase in atmospheric CO2.

This paper provides an account of how epistemological differences between the natural and physical sciences and social sciences may be a barrier to multiscalar and inclusive forms of knowledge governance in global environmental assessments (GEAs). It proposes the concept of geographies of knowledge, to designate both the universalising drive of a positivist epistemology and the localism of relativist and constructivist epistemologies. The paper attempts to determine whether these conflicting geographies of knowledge have been barriers to greater integration of non-scientific knowledge systems - such as Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) - by looking at the cases of three GEAs: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) and the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The paper concludes that innovations in knowledge governance which seek to give more weight to non-scientific knowledge systems should more explicitly acknowledge and address interdisciplinary epistemological differences.

In recent years, youth across the planet have begun to mobilise, motivated by the perceived injustices associated with the causes, consequences and politics of climate change. However, education systems lag behind, preoccupied with the “what” and “how” of climate change, rather than engaging it as a social issue in which students themselves are implicated. In this paper, we share the results of our participatory research exploration into youth and climate change through an international education project, in which 99 students from 13 countries joined virtually in a climate change learning experience, culminating in the collaborative development and presentation of a White Paper to the 2018 IPCC Cities and Climate Change Conference. Grounded in a critical global citizenship education framework, this project provides a site to explore climate change education from the perspectives of diverse youth, who inform possibilities for climate change education that addresses justice, individualisation and emotionality.

ABSTRCT: Although the science of the greenhouse effect of atmospheric CO2 is well established, all efforts to relate this phenomenon to fossil fuel emissions has failed because of deficiencies in the methodology used in the presentation of empirical evidence. Circular reasoning is used in the IPCC carbon budget to relate atmospheric CO2 to fossil fuel emissions as a way of dealing with insurmountable measurement problems. No evidence exists to relate changes in atmospheric CO2 or the rate of warming to fossil fuel emissions because correlations presented for these relationships are spurious. The UNFCCC holds annual COP meetings and calls for reductions in fossil fuel emissions to attenuate global warming without evidence that warming is related to emissions 1. 1. CIRCULAR REASONING IN THE IPCC CARBON BUDGET The so called Carbon Budget, published periodically by the IPCC and also by the Global Carbon Budget (GCB) project (LeQuere, 2015) (IPCC, 2014), is an accounting balance that reconciles all flows of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the surface of the earth, both land and ocean. This accounting balance plays a foundational and pivotal role in the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) hypothesis. The AGW argument holds that fossil fuel emissions generated by the mechanized civilization of the post Industrial Revolution world has increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration; and that higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere have, in turn, increased its greenhouse effect that in turn increases the earth's surface temperature which, if unchecked, will cause Catastrophic Climate Change (CCC) (IPCC, 2014) (Hansen, 1981) (Lacis, 2010). Bias and circular reasoning in the IPCC and GCB carbon budget procedures arise because a presumption of this scenario influences the way the flow accounting is carried out. In the IPCC terminology of carbon budgets, flows from the surface to the atmosphere are called sources and those from the atmosphere to the surface are called sinks. The flows are enumerated in petagrams (10 15 grams) or gigatons (10 9 metric tons) of carbon equivalent flow per year. The two metrics have the same numerical value. Since the molecular weight of carbon dioxide is 44 and that of carbon is 12, the actual flow of carbon dioxide is 3.667 times the carbon equivalent flows quoted. Seven flows are recognized by the IPCC in Chapter 6 of the AR5 WG1 (IPCC, 2014). They are listed in Figure 1 where sources are identified as R and sinks as N. The accounting balance, or carbon budget, is that a change in atmospheric CO2 in terms of carbon equivalent (ΔC) = the difference between sources and sinks. This relationship may be written as ΔC = ∑R-∑N or ∑R-∑N – ΔC = 0. The values for these flows in gigatons of carbon equivalent per year (GTCY) provided by the IPCC are tabulated in Figure 1. 1 Date: December 2016, with thanks to @dumbsci for constructing the research question

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides the scientific basis  for climate policies globally, and has raised political and public awareness of climate change. An independent evaluation in 2010 resulted in changes to IPCC procedures,  processes and governance structure. But what has it learned, and how can it maintain political relevance and scientific integrity in the face of intense political  pressure and an evolving, multidisciplinary scientific field?

This paper introduces Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of field to the study of international environmental politics for the purpose of positioning the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) within the climate field and analysing its relation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Challenging conceptions of the IPCC as an epistemic community and a knowledge provider to the climate regime, this paper explores the IPCC as an assessment practice and identifies the historical development and forms of authority constituting the IPCC’s power to construct the meaning of climate change. It is the IPCC’s power to legitimate meaning that makes the organisation, its assessment activities and the knowledge it produces central objects of interest and struggle within the climate field, and the forces this struggle generates structure all aspects of the IPCC and its work. Unpacking and mapping these forces renders the stakes in the struggle over climate change more transparent and offers new insights for understanding the structuring force that climate ‘deniers’ and ‘bandwagoning’ have in and over the IPCC’s practice of writing climate change.

The assessments issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) aim to provide policy-makers with an objective source of information about the various causes of climate change, the projected consequences for the environment and human affairs, and the options for adaptation and mitigation. But what, in this context, is meant by "objective"? In practice, in an effort to address internal and external criticisms, the IPCC has regularly revised its methodological procedures; some of these procedures seem to meet the requirements of objectivity, at least as understood in a specific sense, but the relationship between objectivity and value-neutrality requires further investigation. The aim of this paper is to offer an appropriate philosophical account of objectivity, reconcilable with the fact that the IPCC is not value-free. I argue that Sandra Harding's notion of strong objectivity is particularly well suited to this goal, and I examine the extent to which the current IPCC procedures match her account.

(Climate Sciences and scientific method between science communication and sociology of knowledge)

Climate sciences are not yet able to establish actual increase in globally averaged temperatures with certainty, especially in relation to human activities. Although the majority of scientific community agrees that a phase of climatic instability is undoubtedly underway and we can talk about a current “Climate Change”, scientific and socio-political debates are still focused on the scientific relevance of the “Anthropogenic Global Warming” (anthropogenic greenhouse effect). The so-called “crucial proof” is still lacking. Starting from an analysis of several official reports, institutional sources and public discussions of last months, the paper examines the development of climate sciences through historiographical and epistemological categories of Sociology of Knowledge and Science Communication. Considering the complex relationships between science, technology and society, the definition of “scientific community” could be replaced by that of “scientific field”. Experimental data are only one of different tools used by scientific enterprise, indeed it should be taken into account others external factors, not necessarily related to laboratory activity and fieldwork, such as: negotiates, personal satisfaction, institutions, policy making, economy etc. Climatology is a case in point. Finally, the article analyses some interesting observations coming from cognitive approaches (cognitive theory of science), according to which science could be defined as an evolutionary and cultural phenomenon related to contingency (historical context).

This paper considers the very large differences in adaptive capacity among the world’s urban centres. It then discusses how risk levels may change for a range of climatic drivers of impacts in the near term (2030–2040) and the long term (2080–2100) with a 2°C and a 4°C warming for Dar es Salaam, Durban, London and New York City. The paper is drawn directly from Chapter 8 of Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, the IPCC Working Group II contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report. It includes the complete text of this chapter’s Executive Summary. The paper highlights the limits to what adaptation can do to protect urban areas and their economies and populations without the needed global agreement and action on mitigation; this is the case even for cities with high adaptive capacities. It ends with a discussion of transformative adaptation and where learning on how to achieve this needs to come from.

There is no place where economics and ecosystem science, in particular climate science, are more intimately connected than in the IPCC climate scenarios, their Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) and the conclusions derived from them. In official parlance, their results should be “policy relevant but not policy prescriptive”. Nonetheless past policy discussions have shown that both the climate science part with its scenarios of droughts, floods and storms (e.g., IPCC, 2014a), and the economic part with cost calculations and suggestions for efficient policy strategies (e.g., IPCC, 2014b) have been influential. In the reports, and in particular in IAMs, both are merged, assuming that both disciplines provide adequate descriptions of the parts of reality they are in charge of analysing and understanding. But do they?

The paper is essentially a synthesis report highlighting key areas of climate vulnerability as a global discourse based on reports from international conventions held over the years. Theoretically, it draws country and sector based scenarios on responses and constraints to climate adaptation. The literature is organized in phases, constituting a conceptual framework, evidence and trend of climate impacts, local ecosystem-based approach (EbA) to sustainable adaptation models, espoused across climate-sensitive sectors. The ultimate aim of this paper is to synthesize and develop a synthesis report on key determinants of climate vulnerability based on existing literature.

We are entering a new era of carbon and nitrogenous waste management. There is one particular biochemical phenomena of interest in this ‘tug-of-war’ for preserving life on Earth as we know it: the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, water vapour, nitrous oxide), and is re-radiated in all directions. It is not a new phenomena.

Geoengineering is the deliberate and large-scale intervention in the Earth's climate system in an attempt to mitigate the adverse effects of global warming. Now that climate emergency is upon us, claims that geoengineering is inevitable are rapidly proliferating. How did we get into this situation where the most extreme path now seems a plausible development? Is it an accurate representation of where we are at? Who is this “we” who is talking? What options make it onto the table? Which are left out? Whom does geoengineering serve? Why is the ensemble of projects that goes by that name so salient, even though the community of researchers and advocates is remarkably small? These are some of the questions that the thinkers contributing to this volume are exploring from perspectives ranging from sociology and geography to ethics and Indigenous studies. The editors set out this diverse collection of voices not as a monolithic, unified take on geoengineering, but as a place where creative thinkers, students, and interested environmental and social justice advocates can explore nuanced ideas in more than 240 characters.

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report launched on Monday 9 th August was a significant event. It has been viewed as indicating a 'code red' for humanity by UN General Secretary António Guterres (https://www.un.org/press/en/2021/sgsm20847.doc.htm), while others have interpreted it as indicating we are on the 'brink of catastrophe', according to Alok Sharma, the Conservative Minister of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy, and lead for the upcoming climate summit in Glasgow, COP26 in November.

Studies integrating climate modelling output into hydrological modelling have grown substantially in the last two decades worldwide; however, there has not been a systematic review about those applications in the Brazilian territory. The aim of this study is to identify how the scientific community has been dealing with the topic in Brazil. The study is based on a systematic review of available peer-reviewed literature. We identify regions and socioeconomic sectors of interest and propose a method to evaluate the methodological consistency of the studies with the current state-of-the-art. The review shows that the topic has grown substantially in this decade, reaching 63 documents until 2018. The sectors under highest concern are the hydropower and the drinking water supply. The Paraná and Atlântico Nordeste Oriental hydrographic regions received great attention; whereas the Atlântico Sudeste did not. In terms of methodology, the use of multi-model ensemble leaves room for improvement. The results suggest a lack of human resources and access to computational infrastructure to handle climate data. Given the current challenges that Brazilian science is facing, we suggest the synchronization of efforts among research institutions. This systematic review provides information to help guiding decision makers to improve the topic in Brazil. RESUMO Estudos que integram modelagem climática em modelagem hidrológica têm crescido substancialmente nas últimas duas décadas em todo o mundo; entretanto, pouco se sabe sobre estes no território brasileiro. O objetivo deste estudo é identificar como a comunidade científica tem lidado com o tema no Brasil. O estudo baseia-se numa revisão sistemática da literatura revisada por pares disponível. Identificamos regiões e setores socioeconômicos de interesse e propomos um método para avaliar a consistência metodológica dos estudos com o atual estado-da-arte. A análise mostra que o tema cresceu substancialmente nesta década, abrangendo 63 documentos até 2018. Os setores de maior interesse são o de energia hidrelétrica e de abastecimento de água potável. As regiões hidrográficas do Paraná e do Atlântico Nordeste Oriental receberam grande atenção; enquanto a região Atlântico Sudeste pouca. Em termos de metodologia, o uso do conjunto de multi-modelos deixa espaço para melhorias. Os resultados sugerem limitações em capacidade técnica e em acesso à infraestrutura computacional para lidar com dados climáticos. Diante dos atuais desafios que a ciência brasileira enfrenta, sugerimos a sincronização de esforços entre instituições de pesquisa. Esta revisão sistemática fornece informações que podem ajudar os tomadores de decisão em ações de aprimoramento do tema no Brasil. Palavras-chave: Modelos de clima; Modelos hidrológicos; Revisão sistemática.

Cet article analyse l’influence de l’expertise du GIEC sur les processus communicationnels régissant les trajectoires des controverses dans les différents espaces de médiation, scientifiques et publics. Il y a d’un côté l’existence de points de controverse nourrissant la recherche et d’un autre côté la façon dont les scientifiques en parlent : qu’est-ce que parler des controverses veut dire ? Partant d’une conceptualisation des controverses climatiques comme un espace social multidimensionnel, un « mille-feuille discursif », cet article analyse les difficultés de régulation de l’expertise climatique et aborde les stratégies discursives des climatologues porteurs de l’alerte climatique dans l’espace public se traduisant par à une forme de « dissonance communicationnelle » conséquence du caractère résolument moderne du GIEC d’une science parlant au pouvoir.

An Achilles’ heel is a weakness in spite of overall strength, which can lead to downfall. While the mythological origin refers to a physical vulnerability, idiomatic references to other attributes or qualities that can lead to downfall are common.

I have prepared for you another provocative reflection on where this civilization is heading without a clearly defined plan to eliminate the causes and consequences of Climate change.

This document critically addresses the overestimation of some pillars/energy sources that have a strategic nature in energy production up to 2050. The strategy of moving from one unhealthy extreme based on fossil fuels to another extreme based on chaotic deployment of Renewables (at all costs) is starting to catch up with us and will catch up very quickly. Everything has its rules - even traffic; it does not exist in deploying Renewables.

I am pleased to read your opinions in the discussion on this document:
https://www.academia.edu/s/e955d48c66

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was constituted by the United Nations in 1988 to conduct periodic assessments of scientific knowledge pertaining to climate change. To date it has published five full-scale Assessments, together with a larger number of Special Reports. These reports are produced by independent experts drawn from around the world, operating under evolving protocols of knowledge assessment established by the Panel’s governing body elected by the world’s national governments. The IPCC assessments are guided by the principle of generating policy relevant, but not policy prescriptive knowledge. In 2007, the IPCC was awarded jointly the Nobel Peace Prize, but in 2010 it came under public scrutiny because of errors in its Fourth Assessment Report. A Sixth Assessment Report is currently being deliberated.

The scorching heat wave of the year 2021 in Moscow has not occurred in 120 years, according to the news. The temperature often exceeded 36°C during the day. The heat wave was followed by huge electrical activity, thunder and lightning. Then came the apocalyptic winds and cloudbursts.

Analysis of these events yields the picture that Nature is showing us a particularly powerful reactor here. One without emissions of gases and radioactivity. What is needed is a heat wave, some trees and water, which together form a kind of heat wave reactor (HWR).

In this module we talk about a heat wave and its (often unwanted) energetic aspects that lead to climate problems such as forest fires, heavy rainfall and floods but also the melting of the polar ice...
To keep the mood up, the module will end with music, books and movies that are somehow related to the topic covered.