How do you think about the risk of this kind of move, modeled loosely after the IPCC for climate change? In particular, that it will make GCR mitigation more like climate change politically?
1. The IPCC emerged / became strong (obviously IPCC was founded in 1988 before the end of the Cold War, but most of its success came after) at a time where there was a lot of appetite for global cooperation and scientific input in environmental policy-making and, despite that, it failed to meaningfully shape the trajectory of climate action.
2. Now we have two trends—rising geopolitical competition and rising populist anti-globalism—that would make one expect a framing like “here is the international expert community, let’s do it like these globalist elites suggest” less powerful going forward.
Obviously there is a benefit to knowledge generation and global sensemaking, but this does seem a significant risk to me compared to more country-driven framings to reduce GCRs.
Thanks for this comment! I am definitely in favor of country-level efforts to address GCRs and to produce reports like this one. The same way that the U.S. produces the National Climate Assessment despite there also being IPCC reports. In this case, I think those two efforts are more complimentary than cannibalistic. E.g., folks that work on the National Climate Assessment in the US often also work on the IPCC and doing the work of organizing/prepping for one helps with organizing/prepping for another. And having an international IPGCR effort may also encourage countries to undertake their own national GCR efforts.
Also, my sense is that the IPCC tends to be more conservative in its findings/statements compared to the National Climate Assessment because it requires a level of buy-in and sign off from its 195 member countries, whereas the National Climate Assessment is produced by a single country. My hypothesis is that a similar dynamic may end up being the case here, where the IPGCR may produce findings that are more conservative than what a single country might produce. But this is still helpful because it gives a sense of which sorts of policies may be palatable globally.
In terms of this effort being a potential cause of political polarization on GCRs, my sense is that in the climate case, the IPCC has not been a driver of the political polarization we’ve seen. Of course, there has been a lot of political division on climate action, but my sense is that the IPCC itself has played little role in causing this. On the contrary, I’ve seen the IPCC as playing a major role in effectively establishing a set of basic knowledge (and corresponding levels of confidence, as their findings are always given with a level of confidence) around climate change, that those skeptical of climate action find it hard to argue with. There is a lot more that is less certain those those skeptical of climate action now debate over (e.g. the benefits and costs of climate action, ability to coordinate global policy to overcome free-riding, etc.), but I think the IPCC has been useful in making it difficult to credibly argue with some of the more basic climate knowledge where there is a good deal of consensus. I often here speakers that are skeptical of climate action going out of their way to emphasize that they agree with key findings of the IPCC to avoid seeming unreasonable.
I see the IPGCR as producing reports that convey areas of consensus, disagreement, and uncertainty among experts from around the world. On a given topic, there might be a lot of uncertainty and disagreement, but there might be some areas where there is perhaps a surprising amount of consensus, and uncovering and convering that information is useful. And if other similar national reports also come to similar findings, that could be helpful in identifying productive areas where progress can be made.
I am not saying the IPCC caused polarization by something they did but rather by what they represent:
The IPCC and similar-style organizations can be used by rising populist anti-globalist, referring to an international scientific body as a reason to do something seems politically very risky when the reputation of science and of international institutions is lower than it used to be and a significant part of the electorate actively resents those authorities.
Insofar as the constraint on GCR risk-reduction is broad political support for difficult actions (like, say, constraining AI progress), anchoring / framing demands via something like an IPCGR might be harmful.
I agree that what you’re saying could in principal be a problem, but I don’t think that’s how its actually played out in the case of the IPCC. I think there are many reasons why climate change is a politically polarized issue, and I personally don’t think that the IPCC played a material role in increasing polarization directly or indirectly (and IMO their impact went in the other direction for the reasons I outlined above).
I agree on that. My point is more forward-looking and in terms of counterfactuals: when there is an opportunity to shape an issue now making it institutionally look more like climate with an IPCC-equivalent is risky given the political environment now.
I’d agree that it doesn’t seem that the IPCC caused political polarization. My observation is that it has been a victim or target of that polarization (as have most efforts at climate action become subject to polarization attempts). If the IPCC hadn’t existed, I think there would still be just as much effort to polarize climate action. There would just be one less target/victim of that polarization.
On the topic of the current political environment and whether it makes sense to create institutions today: It’s worth noting that the IPCC isn’t the only such institution, and some of these were created much more recently, in a time when, according to this argument, there was more polarization. For example, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has a similar structure to the IPCC, but was created in 2012. It has not been credibly accused, to my knowledge, of polarizing conversations on biodiversity. Rather, it is generally viewed as positively contributing to an understanding of the scientific consensus, and remaining uncertainties, around biodiversity and ecosystem services and the available policy options.
I don’t think IPBES is relevant evidence here because ~no one in the US cares about biodiversity as a national policy issue. It has no salience whatsoever, it is not something that can be polarized.
Interesting idea, thanks for writing this!
How do you think about the risk of this kind of move, modeled loosely after the IPCC for climate change? In particular, that it will make GCR mitigation more like climate change politically?
1. The IPCC emerged / became strong (obviously IPCC was founded in 1988 before the end of the Cold War, but most of its success came after) at a time where there was a lot of appetite for global cooperation and scientific input in environmental policy-making and, despite that, it failed to meaningfully shape the trajectory of climate action.
2. Now we have two trends—rising geopolitical competition and rising populist anti-globalism—that would make one expect a framing like “here is the international expert community, let’s do it like these globalist elites suggest” less powerful going forward.
Obviously there is a benefit to knowledge generation and global sensemaking, but this does seem a significant risk to me compared to more country-driven framings to reduce GCRs.
Thanks for this comment! I am definitely in favor of country-level efforts to address GCRs and to produce reports like this one. The same way that the U.S. produces the National Climate Assessment despite there also being IPCC reports. In this case, I think those two efforts are more complimentary than cannibalistic. E.g., folks that work on the National Climate Assessment in the US often also work on the IPCC and doing the work of organizing/prepping for one helps with organizing/prepping for another. And having an international IPGCR effort may also encourage countries to undertake their own national GCR efforts.
Also, my sense is that the IPCC tends to be more conservative in its findings/statements compared to the National Climate Assessment because it requires a level of buy-in and sign off from its 195 member countries, whereas the National Climate Assessment is produced by a single country. My hypothesis is that a similar dynamic may end up being the case here, where the IPGCR may produce findings that are more conservative than what a single country might produce. But this is still helpful because it gives a sense of which sorts of policies may be palatable globally.
In terms of this effort being a potential cause of political polarization on GCRs, my sense is that in the climate case, the IPCC has not been a driver of the political polarization we’ve seen. Of course, there has been a lot of political division on climate action, but my sense is that the IPCC itself has played little role in causing this. On the contrary, I’ve seen the IPCC as playing a major role in effectively establishing a set of basic knowledge (and corresponding levels of confidence, as their findings are always given with a level of confidence) around climate change, that those skeptical of climate action find it hard to argue with. There is a lot more that is less certain those those skeptical of climate action now debate over (e.g. the benefits and costs of climate action, ability to coordinate global policy to overcome free-riding, etc.), but I think the IPCC has been useful in making it difficult to credibly argue with some of the more basic climate knowledge where there is a good deal of consensus. I often here speakers that are skeptical of climate action going out of their way to emphasize that they agree with key findings of the IPCC to avoid seeming unreasonable.
I see the IPGCR as producing reports that convey areas of consensus, disagreement, and uncertainty among experts from around the world. On a given topic, there might be a lot of uncertainty and disagreement, but there might be some areas where there is perhaps a surprising amount of consensus, and uncovering and convering that information is useful. And if other similar national reports also come to similar findings, that could be helpful in identifying productive areas where progress can be made.
Thanks, Danny!
I think this is a misunderstanding.
I am not saying the IPCC caused polarization by something they did but rather by what they represent:
The IPCC and similar-style organizations can be used by rising populist anti-globalist, referring to an international scientific body as a reason to do something seems politically very risky when the reputation of science and of international institutions is lower than it used to be and a significant part of the electorate actively resents those authorities.
Insofar as the constraint on GCR risk-reduction is broad political support for difficult actions (like, say, constraining AI progress), anchoring / framing demands via something like an IPCGR might be harmful.
I agree that what you’re saying could in principal be a problem, but I don’t think that’s how its actually played out in the case of the IPCC. I think there are many reasons why climate change is a politically polarized issue, and I personally don’t think that the IPCC played a material role in increasing polarization directly or indirectly (and IMO their impact went in the other direction for the reasons I outlined above).
I agree on that. My point is more forward-looking and in terms of counterfactuals: when there is an opportunity to shape an issue now making it institutionally look more like climate with an IPCC-equivalent is risky given the political environment now.
I’d agree that it doesn’t seem that the IPCC caused political polarization. My observation is that it has been a victim or target of that polarization (as have most efforts at climate action become subject to polarization attempts). If the IPCC hadn’t existed, I think there would still be just as much effort to polarize climate action. There would just be one less target/victim of that polarization.
On the topic of the current political environment and whether it makes sense to create institutions today: It’s worth noting that the IPCC isn’t the only such institution, and some of these were created much more recently, in a time when, according to this argument, there was more polarization. For example, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has a similar structure to the IPCC, but was created in 2012. It has not been credibly accused, to my knowledge, of polarizing conversations on biodiversity. Rather, it is generally viewed as positively contributing to an understanding of the scientific consensus, and remaining uncertainties, around biodiversity and ecosystem services and the available policy options.
I don’t think IPBES is relevant evidence here because ~no one in the US cares about biodiversity as a national policy issue. It has no salience whatsoever, it is not something that can be polarized.