Reforming the products and processes of the IPCC to enhance its relevance

Introduction

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 to review the scientific knowledge on climate change. The IPCC has three Working Groups (WG): WGI deals with the physical science basis of climate change; WGII with climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability; and WGIII with mitigation of climate change as well as a Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories that develops and refines methodologies for the estimation and reporting of national greenhouse gas emissions and removals. Since 1988, the IPCC has published six comprehensive global Assessment Reports at five to seven year intervals. Each Assessment Report is composed of three WG reports and a Synthesis Report which are the focus of this paper. It has also published a number of Special Reports and Methodology Reports.

Currently 195 countries are members of the IPCC. Representatives of member governments meeting in Plenary session are the IPCC’s (the Panel’s) supreme body. The Plenary elects a Chair and a Bureau composed of 34 scientists for the duration of an assessment cycle. An Executive Committee of 12 Bureau members and five advisory members (the IPCC secretary and Heads of the Technical Support Units) addresses urgent issues between Plenary sessions. The reports are prepared by experts selected by the Bureau based on nominations from governments, observer organisations and Bureau members. Report production and the authors are supported by the IPCC Secretariat and the WG Technical Support Units (TSUs).

An assessment cycle begins with the election of a Chair and Bureau, often with substantial changes to the membership, and establishment of new TSUs. Transitions often generate external proposals for changes to the IPCC, such as the papers in this special issue that address its relevance in the context of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change¹. These papers extend the literature produced by IPCC authors, observers and internal reflections generated by the experience of previous cycles^{2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12}.

This paper proposes reforms to the IPCC’s products and processes to enable it to better meet the needs of its audiences while reducing the growing burden imposed on authors by the exponential growth of the climate change literature. Possible reforms identifies where changes are needed and/or desirable and Proposed reforms to the IPCC’s products and processes outlines our proposed reforms.

Changes to IPCC reports to increase their relevance to target audiences are proposed. Massive, over 2000 pages, working group reports are replaced by shorter, more focused reports and working papers to reduce the burden on authors and TSUs. And modifications to the operation of the Bureau and Executive Committee to better support Plenary decisions are suggested. The proposals benefit from the perspectives of the authors’ long experience with the IPCC as Chair, Bureau member, author, review editor and focal point.

Possible Reforms

The sixth cycle assessed a far larger body of literature, produced more reports than any previous cycle. It generated important policy-relevant conclusions that have already impacted government policies and societal action¹². But to remain the pre-eminent international body on climate change science, changes are needed.

The IPCC can serve its audiences better

IPCC reports have four audiences—national governments, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), climate scientists and the public. The interests of these audiences would be better served if:

Governments received more focused information on effective mitigation and adaptation policies.
The UNFCCC received assessments of climate science to support the Global Stocktakes under the Paris Agreement and requested reports on specific topics such as the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C in 2018.
The contributions of climate scientists that participate as IPCC authors were used more efficiently through the provision of more support and reduction of administrative burdens¹³.
The public, which influences the political support for climate change action, was able to get easy-to-understand, scientifically accurate information from the IPCC^12,14.

The IPCC must change to cope with the explosive growth of the climate change literature

The quantity of new peer-reviewed literature available for the Sixth Assessment was almost double the volume available for all previous assessments combined^12,15. The exponential growth of the literature increased the workloads of authors, reviewers, review editors and TSUs. Comparing the three WG reports for the 5th and 6th assessments, the number of authors declined from 667 to 632, the number of references cited increased by 65%, the number of review comments increased by 30% and the number of pages increased by 30%¹². The growth of the literature means more papers must be assessed and integrated into the text increasing coordination requirements for authors.

The larger literature led to longer reports; over 2000 pages for each AR6 Working Group report. Compiling the longer reports prior to the deadline for distribution of each draft strains the capacity of the TSUs. The longer drafts generate more review comments from more experts which must be compiled and sorted by page and line number by the TSUs. Then authors must provide a written response, vetted by review editors, to each comment.

An author’s commitment lasts 3–5 years. Author disengagement for various personal or professional reasons is a problem for the writing team, but not for an author. Once appointed, an author remains an author regardless of his or her contribution. Additional authors are recruited during the writing process, in part to offset author disengagement.

The IPCC’s scientific and administrative processes can be improved

Scientific and administrative support are provided by the Bureau, the Executive Committee, the Secretariat and the TSUs.

The Bureau is an advisory body to the Plenary. Although its members have scientific backgrounds, the Bureau deals with both scientific and administrative matters with the latter representing about 65% of its agenda items¹². During the sixth cycle the Bureau did not fulfil its advisory role effectively—less than 45% of Bureau agenda items match those of the next Plenary, Bureau meeting reports were not always available for the next Plenary and the Bureau did not reach agreement on some matters¹².

The Executive Committee (ExCom) addresses issues that require decisions between Panel sessions. The ExCom consists of 12 Bureau members and five advisory members (the IPCC Secretary and heads of the four TSUs). The actions to implement ExCom decisions are mostly administrative tasks implemented by the Secretariat and/or TSUs. Given the ExCom’s focus, it is striking that the staff responsible for the IPCC’s administration are limited to an advisory role.

Administrative functions are divided among the TSUs and the Secretariat. Coordination issues arise as new TSUs are established at the beginning of a cycle and when TSU records are archived at the end of a cycle.

Proposed reforms to the IPCC’s products and processes

Three categories of reforms are proposed: (1) serve the IPCC’s audiences better, (2) change the assessment process to reduce author and TSU workload and (3) enhance scientific and administrative support.

Serve the IPCC’s audiences better

Government needs could be met by short (less than 100 pages) reports consisting of a Summary for Policymakers (SPM) and a Technical Summary (TS) that focus on policy relevant literature. To improve the policy relevance of the reports the scopes of the Working Group and Synthesis Reports would address, but not be limited to, questions proposed by governments. The Working Group Bureaux would request submissions on questions relevant to governments and propose a consolidated set of questions. This was done for AR3; its Synthesis Report responds to nine questions elicited from governments⁵. Authors would also include scientific information they judged to be policy relevant.

To support the UNFCCC the IPCC will need to provide input to future global stocktakes. Focusing on the policy-relevant scientific input useful for the stocktake, possibly in a short Special Report or Technical Paper, may offer a solution.

To better inform the public the IPCC could provide easily accessible information on climate change, its impacts and mitigation and adaptation options in non-technical language. A tab on the IPCC website with a primer on climate change and the FAQs in all official UN languages at a level that can be understood by the general public would meet this need¹⁶.

IPCC reports are difficult to understand. The Flesch Reading Ease (FRE) score measures the difficulty of understanding a text; a higher score means the text is easier to read. Language easily understood by a high school student would have a FRE score higher than 70. IPCC SPMs have FRE scores below 30 and AR6 FAQs have FRE scores under 50^12,17,18. Figures in IPCC reports, especially the AR6 Synthesis Report, are also complex^12,19,20,21.

Change the assessment process to reduce author and TSU workloads

To reduce the workload on authors and TSUs, WG report chapters would be replaced by IPCC Working Papers. Working Papers differ from IPCC Technical Papers which are restricted to using material from reports adopted by the IPCC Plenary.

A Working Group report would consist of an SPM and a Technical Summary (TS) and be prepared using the current process. The only difference is that the WG reports would be much shorter; about 100 rather than over 2000 pages. Since the WG reports are much shorter the number of authors is reduced and the review and revision periods could be shorter. The selection process for WG authors does not change. Authors drafting the WG reports would draw on relevant Working Papers as well as other literature that meets IPCC criteria.

Working Papers would be a new category of IPCC document prepared using the process outlined in Fig. 1. The Working Group Bureaux select the CLAs for Working Papers and they recruit additional authors. The total number of authors (Working Papers and WG reports) could be higher or lower than for recent assessments. Each Working Paper would be the responsibility of its authors; Working Papers would not be approved or adopted by the Plenary.

Reforming the products and processes of the IPCC to enhance its relevance — **Fig. 1**

Working Papers reduce author workload and encourage author engagement in several ways:

There is only one round of expert review. This would reduce the number of review comments authors need to respond to significantly.
The time commitment is shorter for most authors—less than 2 years for Working Paper authors. Working Group report authors would still have a 3 to 5 year involvement.
The Coordinating Lead Authors are actively involved in the selection of their writing team.
Author contributions are listed in each paper, as is increasingly common for journal articles.

The workloads of WG report authors are also reduced because the reports are much shorter which reduces the number of review comments and coordination requirements significantly.

Meta-assessments and systematic reviews can help with assessment of scientific literature. As the literature grows, more papers using these methods will be published and be available to IPCC authors. While helpful, papers using these techniques are not complete substitutes for an IPCC assessment. They typically apply filters to select relevant literature. The excluded literature may include information relevant to an IPCC assessment.

The IPCC does not undertake research so it is not clear whether use of those techniques would be allowed when drafting WG reports. Writing teams are, in any case, unlikely to have the requisite skills, time and financial resources to use them. Those techniques could however be used by Working Paper author teams when appropriate.

Completion dates for Working Papers would be staggered over several months to reduce the peak workload of the TSUs. Tracking of review comments would be greatly simplified since each set of comments relate to a single Working Paper. Review editors would be needed only for the Working Group and Synthesis Reports so the number would be significantly reduced. The shorter WG reports would also reduce the burdens on TSUs; easier compilation of reports and fewer review comments to process.

Conceptually it appears that the proposed process would require more time—Working Papers are produced with one review followed by two drafts of the WG report each subject to review. In practice the time to review and revise a Working Paper can be shorter than the time currently allowed for a WG report. And since the WG report is much shorter, the time allowed for each review and revision could be reduced. Overall, the time is likely to be about the same as under the current process.

Improve scientific and administrative support processes

To improve the scientific and administrative management of the IPCC changes are proposed to the activities of the Bureau and the Executive Committee, the roles of the Chair and the IPCC Secretary, and services provided by the Secretariat.

The Bureau would focus primarily, but not exclusively, on scientific issues reflecting the expertise of Bureau members.

The Executive Committee would be slightly restructured and focus on administrative matters. The IPCC Secretary/Chief Administrative Officer and Heads of the TSUs would be full members and, together with the Chair, constitute an Operations Team. The Operations Team would meet virtually monthly to coordinate administrative matters. The full Executive Committee would meet as needed and prepare a report for each Plenary.

To benefit from the input from the Bureau and the Executive Committee the agendas of those bodies must reflect the agenda of the next Plenary and their meetings must be scheduled to enable their reports to be circulated as part of the Plenary materials. To achieve the necessary coordination, the IPCC Chair, who is also the Chair of each of these bodies, would propose the agendas and meeting dates for the Plenary, Bureau and Executive Committee. All agendas would include an item for “Other matters” to allow focal points, Bureau members and ExCom members to raise other issues. To better support the Plenary the reports of the Bureau and Executive Committee should take the form of draft conclusions or recommended Plenary decisions.

The proposals to better serve audiences, provide additional support to authors and improve the administration of the IPCC require a more user-friendly website and a better information technology infrastructure¹². Authors, especially female, developing country and indigenous authors, need more support^{22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29}. And financial management can be improved by ensuring Plenary sessions have time to review the Financial Task Team (FiTT) proposals¹².

Given the larger administrative function, the IPCC Secretary becomes the Chief Administrative Officer reporting to the Chair and the Secretariat supports and coordinates all administrative processes. And to enable the IPCC Secretariat to implement the proposed changes in a timely and cost-effective manner it will need greater administrative autonomy from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). This could be achieved through an agreement between the WMO and the IPCC providing for a “delegation of authority” that would not require a change in the current agreements between the WMO and the United Nations Environment Programme to support the IPCC.

A number of the proposed reforms require changes to IPCC rules and procedures; rules relating to Working Papers for example. The Plenary can adopt such changes incrementally as needed rather than waiting for a comprehensive review of rules and procedures.

To achieve economies with net-zero carbon emissions, it is essential to develop a robust green financial intermediary channel. This study seeks empirical evidence on how domestic bank lending to sovereign and private sectors in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries impacts carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions. We employ PMG-ARDL model to panel data comprising six countries in GCC over twenty years for carbon dioxide emissions and nineteen years for greenhouse gas emissions. Our findings reveal a long-term positive impact of both bank lending variables on carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, lending to the government shows a negative short-term effect on greenhouse gas emissions. The cross-country results demonstrate the presence of a long-run effect of explanatory variables on both types of emissions, except for greenhouse gas in Saudi Arabia. The sort-term impact of the explanatory variables on carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions is quite diverse. Not only do these effects differ across countries, but some variables have opposing effects on the two types of emissions within a single country. The findings of this study present a new perspective for GCC economies: neglecting total greenhouse gas emissions and concentrating solely on carbon dioxide emissions means missing critical information for devising effective strategies to combat threats of environmental degradation and achieve net-zero goals.