Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

IPCC's outdated climate change communication won't cut it ... If the IPCC doesn't move away from staid warnings towards human stories, the science will never be brought to life

Presentation Of IPCC Climate Report

The IPCC produces its assessment reports on climate change roughly every five years. But are these reports failing to connect with people? Photograph: Thomas Koehler/Photothek via Getty Images For almost 25 years, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released regular assessment reports warning the world of the dangers of climate change. The scientific knowledge that has been accumulated over this time is astonishing in its breadth and scope.

Compiling, collating and synthesising publications from dozens of scientific disciplines, and distilling this into a format that policymakers from across the globe can use as the basis of their national policies on climate change is a phenomenal, painstaking and noble undertaking.

But from the perspective of catalysing a proportionate political and public response to climate change, the reports have had limited impact.

Despite all the rebuttals of sceptics' arguments, and the 'myth busting', public opinion is no further advanced than it was when the IPCC first started producing its reports. In the UK, where policymakers have accepted the IPCC's conclusions and recommendations for more than a decade, public engagement with climate change has regressed since the mid-2000s and the political consensus has begun to unravel.

In a report released yesterday by the Climate Outreach & Information Network, we argue that although the IPCC is succeeding in its aim of presenting facts about climate change to policy makers, this role reflects an outdated model of how science is incorporated into society, and how social change occurs. Catalysing a proportionate political and public response to climate change means rethinking how climate change is communicated: from science to human stories.

Based on interviews with 16 leading climate change communicators from the media and NGOs in the UK, the report makes a seven recommendations for transforming the role of the IPCC.

Our central argument is that IPCC outputs must be coupled with human stories and powerful narratives which can bring the science to life. In a recent piece for the New Statesman magazine, the Sarah Ditum argued that 'the left is addicted to 'smartarse debunking.' But arguments are won by telling human stories.' A similar argument could be made about climate science communicators.

Stories are the means by which people make sense of the world, learn values, form beliefs, and give shape to their lives. Stories are everywhere; in myth, comedy, and stained glass windows. But for the most part, they are absent from climate change communication.

The careful, considered science and statistics of the IPCC cannot compete with the siren stories of climate change scepticism or the priorities of parts of the right-wing media (where one man's fight against a wind turbine trumps a thousand scientists setting out the case for decarbonisation). To engage the public, the IPCC needs to work with a range of partners who can weave stories with cultural credibility from the science: how will climate change affect the things people love?

In addition, by reorienting and restructuring the IPCC – so that it provides science 'on demand', tailored to the needs of different audiences and stakeholders – its relevance and influence could drastically increase. Do policymakers need a mammoth report every five years? Are the scientists involved making best use of their time?

If the IPCC was structured in order to catalyse a proportionate public and political response to climate change, the assessment reports would be turned on their head and would start from the needs of their audiences. These audiences would be defined by their capacity to bring about rapid social, technological and economic change. This would likely involve policymakers, but it would certainly not be limited to this group.

What does the construction sector need to know about climate change to create low-carbon infrastructure? How can conservationists get the facts they need about climate change to design programmes for adaptation? How will programmes of health care for the elderly be impacted in a changing climate?

These changes would not be easy to implement. But if they seem like a considerable undertaking, then it is worth reflecting on how many person-hours have been poured into the IPCC process over almost a quarter of a century, and how lacklustre the political and public response has been. The terms of the IPCC are ultimately set by the governments that comprise the UN. This means that they can be changed by putting pressure on those who jointly oversee the funding and procedure of the organisation.

By working with a range of partners whose stories can lend cultural credibility to the scientific consensus – voices and groups from across the social and political spectrum – the science of the IPCC can be brought to life.

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PeterBurgess 16 May 2014 1:54pm

The idea that IPCC should organize its findings so that they catalyze action is preposterous. The IPCC should stick to its knitting, no matter how boring this proves to be. The IPCC should do its best to lay out the facts. Period.

The problem is that the broader populace is so accustomed to a dumbing down of everything, and the media feeds into this with very superficial work. The whole situation is appalling ... but I do see media as a big part of the problem, and critical in getting the problem solved.

I am an advocate for numerical analysis, and I do think there is a place for non-scientist numbers people to engage with the findings of the IPCC to present the findings in a way that is more easy to understand. In turn this would help journalists who usually don't have the time to dig into what the scientists are saying. There is a community of analysts that work on corporate performance numbers. There needs to be a community of analysts that work on social and environmental performance. For this to happen there needs to be a 'language' that analysts can use, just as there is a language about profit and capital market behaviors.

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