Climate myths that MUST go
For several, several years now, experts have been trying to urge governments and citizens to take action or prepare for the climate crisis. Two things are simultaneously true: that there is some progress, and that there needs to be a lot more progress. In this three-part post, I'd like to identify three myths that throw confusion into the climate conversation, creating hurdles for constructive action.
Myth #1: IPCC = COP
The IPCC, or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, is a body of experts. Its reports and statements are devoid of political perspectives. One may argue that there is some political influence on what goes into the Summary of Policymakers. That is a valid point, but it is a matter of inclusion/omission of text into the Summary only. The full report is based only on technical findings and political influence can not change facts.
COP, or Conference of Parties, on the other hand, is essentially a political body. Delegation from member states (or "Parties") are led by political officials. For example, India is represented at the COPs by the Environment Minister, and not by a climate expert.
To put it crudely, it's a simple expert vs. politician contrast. In an ideal world, we would like democratically elected politicians to make decisions based on expert advice. To assume this actually happens requires immense naivete. In fact, the greatest concern by experts all this while is that politicians are not acting adequately, despite immense amounts of information and solutions being available.
Here is a tweet by an Indian expert who shares how expert advice isn't always heeded. Here is another tweet by an expert from the UK. Here's another expert warning of political deflections. And do read this thought-provoking article by a scientist from the USA. These are just some of the examples that come to my mind when I want to convey that there is a very wide chasm between expert suggestions and political action. And this is a world-wide occurrence, present but not restricted to India.
So the first and most important climate myth to dispel is that the IPCC and the COP are the same thing. That COP failures somehow reflect badly on the IPCC. That the moral corruption we see on full display at COPs also means that IPCC reports are worthless. In fact, attacking the credibility of the IPCC is a 3-decade old tactic, it just constantly changes forms.
Let's take a real world example. Here is a conversation I recently had on Twitter:
"Per capita emissions are relevant as it depicts sheer inequalities that exist in the world. Most of emissions are "luxury", some are required for basic sustenance of humans in global south. We live in a grossly unequal world. Thankfully IPCC is starting to accept this from AR6."
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| From: IPCC FAR (1990) |
A popular misconception is that IPCC reports are written by climate scientists alone, and who would believe that scientists know anything about the real world? Especially about concepts like political negotiations, economic and financial tools, policy making, equity and justice? However, if anyone is to work meaningfully in this field, it is imperative to be aware of the fact that climate scientists form the core only of the first Working Group out of three.
Anyway, the conversation continued thus:
"Agreed but never put in practice. Article 3.4 is always there in principle but post Kyoto it was increasingly sidelined starting from Copenhagen to Cancun to Durban till Paris. IPCC only acknowledged that there is even a budget exist in AR5, more explicitly in SR1.5."
Perhaps the reader can recognize at this point that IPCC and COP (or governments) have been used interchangeably here. The IPCC can not put things in practice in nations, it is not a policy-making body. Kyoto, Copenhagen, Cancun, Durban, Paris -- all these refer to various COPs. Any failure of these COPs can not be attributed to the IPCC, and in fact, IPCC authors frequently share their own disappointment regarding the COPs, just like the rest of us.
But the tweet-er raised another interesting point: that the IPCC only acknowledged a budget in SR1.5. Why would this be? A budget requires a target number for a global mean temperature. By this I mean that you can only begin to create a budget for a 1.5 ℃ world, after you somehow decided that 1.5 is the number you're aiming for. There is no single number that works for every country in the world. (This Guardian article explains this by covering this paper by Burke et al., 2015. Do note the fact that rising temperatures will take the U.S. out of the optimum climatic range. That, in my opinion, is the only plausible motivation for the U.S. to implement climate policies. Not any per capita guilt.) The IPCC had not come up with this number on its own, but was asked by the UNFCCC to write a report keeping this number in mind. In fact, the IPCC report explicitly stated that "science on the 1.5 warming limit is less robust" but went on to say that "efforts should be made to push the defence line as low as possible". Read more on "Why did the IPCC produce this special report?" here.
Here's another real world example of the IPCC=COP myth. The podcast by the India Energy Hour entitled "Path to Climate Justice in a Net Zero World" has, in its introduction, the text:
"For years, multiple Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have relied on integrated assessment models or IAM modelling pathways to achieve global net zero targets."
Despite various popular ideas (I mean: conspiracy theories), the IPCC reports are not policy-prescriptive. They do not attempt to "achieve global net zero targets". This is because they are written by subject-specific experts and not policymakers. The work of the IPCC is only to compile policy-relevant information so governments can use the available information to form their own policies.
Myth #2: Climate models are inequitable →
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