Roger Pielke Jr: The political agenda of the IPCC
By Paul Homewood
Scientific assessment or environmental advocacy group? Pick one
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established as a scientific assessment process more than 35 years ago. Scientific assessments are of critical importance in many areas to help policy makers and the public to identify what is known, what is uncertain, as well as where there is contestation, uncertainties and areas of fundamental ignorance. Such assessments can also help us to understand policy options and expectations for how different choices might lead to different outcomes.
Regular readers of The Honest Broker will know that I have taken issue with the recent IPCC Sixth Assessment (AR6) based on an unacceptable number of errors and omissions in my areas of expertise, as well as its over-reliance on the most extreme climate scenarios. Today I take a look at the IPCC’s self-described political agenda and argue that the institution finds itself at a fork in the road.
Before proceeding, I want to be clear about what I mean when I talk about “the IPCC.” In one sense there is really no such thing as “the IPCC.” The organization’s assessment process includes many hundreds of people who do their work across three Working Groups to produce many dozens of chapters covering a wide range of topics. The Working Groups are largely independent of each other and even chapters within the same Working Group can be written largely independently of other chapters.
In another sense there is indeed such a thing as the IPCC — Specifically, its leadership and most engaged participants. These core participants represent a kind of climate in-group with a shared sense of purpose and an overarching commitment to a shared political agenda. For some people, their entire career is centered on the IPCC. These core participants do have a shared political agenda which can be seen in varying degrees within the reports.
So what is the political agenda of the IPCC in-group?
Transformational change
When the IPCC released its Synthesis Report in March, it announced:
"Taking the right action now could result in the transformational change essential for a sustainable, equitable world."
It would be easy to write this sentence off as containing consultant-like and empty buzzwords. But the notion of “transformational change” has been widely employed in the academic literature on climate and the IPCC clearly defines what it means by “transformational change.”
In its AR6 Working Group 3 report the IPCC explains that transformation involves more than simply transitioning from one type of technology to another (emphasis added):
"While transitions involve ‘processes that shift development pathways and reorient energy, transport, urban and other subsystems’ (Loorbach et al. 2017) (Chapter 16), transformation is the resulting ‘fundamental reorganisation of large-scale socio-economic systems’ (Hölscher et al. 2018). Such a fundamental reorganisation often requires dynamic multi-stage transition processes that change everything from public policies and prevailing technologies to individual lifestyles, and social norms to governance arrangements and institutions of political economy"
Transformational change means that everything changes.
What are examples of these sorts of changes? The IPCC identifies “the potential for virtuous cycles of individual level and wider social changes that ultimately benefit the climate.”
The IPCC continues (emphasis added):
"The starting point for this virtuous circle are inner transitions. Inner transitions occur within individuals, organisations and even larger jurisdictions that alter beliefs and actions involving climate change (Woiwode et al. 2021). An inner transition within an individual (see e.g., Parodi and Tamm 2018) typically involves a person gaining a deepening sense of peace and a willingness to help others, as well as protecting the climate and the planet . . ."
What are examples of such “inner transitions”? The IPCC explains:
"Examples have also been seen in relation to a similar set of inner transitions to individuals, organisations and societies, which involve embracing post-development, degrowth, or non-material values that challenge carbon-intensive lifestyles and development models . . ."
The IPCC discusses the importance of “degrowth” to its vision of transformation in its AR6 Working Group 2 report.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Surely “intergovernmental” and “scientific” are mutually exclusive.
Political from the very start. The name alone and the IPCC charter are obvious evidence.
The IPCC has always been a political organisation with the aim of destroying capitalism and bringing about a ONE WORLD SOCIALIST government .
The admitted a long time ago that the Climate part is not real but is just an excuse to take all of the money from Western economies .
They get ” Scientists ” to write their predictions then change them into exactly want the politicians want to say .
Just look at their latest load of lies.https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/05/11/new-analysis-highlights-serious-errors-and-bias-in-latest-ipcc-report/
The way they are going in destroying Western economies there won’t be much money left for them to take, and anyway, where was the money going to end up?
IIRC one of the earliest and most disreputable political betrayals by a scientist was Ben Santer rewriting the 1995 IPCC report conclusions to turn them completely on their head.
By the way, what is Ben Santer doing now?
“Transformational change means that everything changes.”
Except for certain “elite” people… UN and IPCC leaders, John Kerry…many “green” climate protestors.. Extinction Rebellion, No More Oil? Will they stop using fossil fuels to travel the world telling us we need to take bold action? Not likely. Nothing changes for these people.
It seems we missed this moan in the Observer (the Guardian on a Sunday)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/14/climate-crisis-deniers-target-scientists-abuse-musk-twitter
Ben Pile did a twitter thread about it
As Corporal Jones (Dad’s Army) used to say
They don’t like it up ’em, the fuzzy wuzzies.
And as we used to say in the RAF: ‘BS baffles brains’.
IPCC deliberately swamp the public (such that many bother to read) with so much info that it becomes hard to know where to start. That is what IPCC wants to happen.
“An inner transition within an individual (see e.g., Parodi and Tamm 2018) typically involves a person gaining a deepening sense of peace and a willingness to help others, as well as protecting the climate and the planet . . .”
They sound like a right gang of hippies to me, and about as relevant.
The IPCCG is a CCP/WEF plot to destroy the economies of the West, by sending them on the snipe-hunt that is decarbonization. Wake up–China and India emit the largest amounts of so-called green house gases, and they could care lass what anyone says. Why? They are not credulous fools bowing to negative publicity from the corrupt press.
I part company from Roger Pielke’s first sentence about it having been established as a “scientific assessment”. It was predicated right from the get-go on the assumption that man’s activities were affecting the climate via the Earth’s radiation budget. This was an input to the exercise, not an output from it. WG2 and 3 activities flowed from this foundational presumption.
Having that remit of course lets contributors off the hook of presenting normal science based on standard protocols of a neutral hypothesis followed by evidence pro and con alternative explanations. This purely confirmatory character is why we need to add the definite article and always talk about “the science”.
I found Roger Pielke’s ‘scepticism’ to always be rather lukewarm.
Agree.
Nobody voted for the IPCC. Who do they think they are?
Nobody voted for any of the “climate” and “green” lunacy that most European countries seem to be obsessed with. The EU countries can blame the Commission, but the non-EU countries cannot do that i.e. self-inflicted
>>Nobody voted for the IPCC
Correct: No sane person would sign on to this inane policy. This is straight-up Marxism, fostered by the WEF, UN and World Bank. All these “proclamations” are about CONTROL, nothing more.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established as a scientific assessment process more than 35 years ago.’
Well, no it wasn’t. No climate on earth was changing. None. There was NOTHING TO ASSESS. The IPCC was created to CREATE something to assess. In 35 years, there are still looking for somewhere that has a change in climate. A few towns in the Sahel, maybe. More rainfall, greening. Clearly, a GOOD THING!
‘Scientific assessments are of critical importance’
Not for climate change. It’s all made up.
‘in many areas to help policy makers and the public to identify what is known, what is uncertain, as well as where there is contestation, uncertainties and areas of fundamental ignorance. Such assessments can also help us to understand policy options and expectations for how different choices might lead to different outcomes.’
The assessments have been written to scare people into giving up their freedom.
Dr Pielke’s report is refreshing in the Climate Change realm, but the realm is fake.
Great work as always Paul, you are a human dynamo.