COP21- A study published by the journal Nature explains that the syntheses of experts to the attention of policy makers and the general public are “incomprehensible.” The IPCC says “a reflection is currently underway to better share knowledge on climate.”
The lack of scientific pedagogy could harm to the planet. A priori, the causal link is not intuitive. In fact, according to a study, the absence of ambitious climate policies is partly explained by the lack of clarity of scientific recommendations. “Our leaders decided on the basis of IPCC reports summaries incomprehensible,” said a report of the Kedge Business School, Bordeaux Management School. “Global action on climate change is seriously hampered because the advice of the IPCC scientific body which, if they refer in the matter, are so difficult to understand that a minimum PhD to grasp the recommendations” , says Ralf Barkemeyer, teacher and researcher who led the study published in the journal Nature .
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published in fact, every five years, a report accompanied by a summary for policy makers and the media in order to synthesize the current state of climate research and make it accessible to non-scientific public. However, the intergovernmental body created by the UN does not completely fulfill its mission. The “summaries produced since 1990 by the IPCC are increasingly unintelligible” as Kedge Business School. “The IPCC was established to provide information on the global climate policy, but it is clear that he is not fulfilling its mission when its summaries for policymakers are so illegible. He failed in his task, “said Suraje Dessai, professor at the University of Leeds, co-author of the study.
” The vocabulary is very sharp and sentences are long and complex “
To reach these conclusions, the authors of this study have developed a linguistic analysis tool to decrypt the degree of intelligibility of a text. This algorithm is based on the sentence length and complexity of the words used. “The vocabulary is very sharp and phrases are long and complex, says Frank Figge, director of the school’s research department. They produce most difficult texts to understand that research articles published in specialized magazines, “adds the scientist.
The RCP scenarios or representative trajectory of concentration …
For example, the term used to describe the different warming scenarios in the world is complex. In their fifth report, the IPCC scientists call the different global warming scenarios “RCP scenarios” for Representative Concentration Pathway or representative trajectory concentration in French. This concept refers to the future atmospheric composition, related to changes in gas concentration of greenhouse gases, to be issued in the coming years. An RCP scenario to model future climate. Each of the four scenarios and takes stock of solar radiation by 2100, or radiative balance of the climate system of the Earth, expressed in watts per square meter. The RCP2.6 scenario is the optimistic scenario which corresponds to a radiative forcing of 2.6 W / m2, the RCP4.5 scenario to 4.5 W / m2, and even for RCP6 and RCP8.5 scenarios. In sum, the higher the number, the higher the number of components added to the atmosphere, the greater the influence of humans on climate is high and, ultimately, the earth is warming more … concepts not always easy to understand for non-scientists.
“The reports can easily be misinterpreted”
The authors of the study then made a parallel with the media impact of published reports. The results show that as far as the information published by the IPCC in its summaries lost in readability, media representation that was made public by the press became more and more pessimistic, beyond that contained IPCC reports themselves. Thus, in the eyes of Ralf Barkemeyer, “IPCC summaries are so difficult to understand that they can give rise to many different interpretations on the same point. They can easily be misinterpreted by climate change skeptics, for example. If these summaries were simpler and accessible, the public could directly benefit from these documents and discover the true nature of the challenges. ” He concluded: “If governments are not able to understand the scientific facts presented to them, how can they hope to reach a consensus or a common decision?”
An ongoing reflection at the head of the IPCC
The French Valérie Masson-Delmotte climatologist who has just been elected the new office of the IPCC, says the study is “a study among others on this subject.” It recognizes that the publications of the organization are access “very difficult for non-specialists.” But she added that the summaries “are not designed for the general public. They address climate policy experts of each government. ” It further explains that if the reports are increasingly complex is that the reports complement each, other. She added that the complexity of the IPCC reports that “respect the principle of rigor and completeness” is not responsible for the inaction of the political thing.
In addition, the new co-chair of the IPCC underlines that “a reflection is currently underway to better share knowledge on climate and make it as clear as possible an inventory on research in this area . For future reports, we Stecklings on a way to make them more accessible especially with a shorter reading grid and evaluation results with a short instructional video. ” Scientific highlights that the latest report has a “short summaries” or “summary to the prime ministers of twenty lines.” This text summarizes the key points is “very accessible”. The question is whether this tool will allow heads of state who met in Paris in early December at COP 21 to agree on an ambitious climate policy.
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