A Critical Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has become a hugely influential institution. It is the authoritative voice on the science on climate change, and an exemplar of an intergovernmental science–policy interface. This book introduces the IPCC as an institution, covering its origins, history, processes, participants, products and influence. Discussing its internal workings and operating principles, it shows how IPCC assessments are produced and how consensus is reached between scientific and policy experts from different institutions, countries and social groups. A variety of practices and discourses – epistemic, diplomatic, procedural, communicative – that make the institution function are critically assessed, allowing the reader to learn from its successes and failures. This volume is the go-to reference for researchers studying or active within the IPCC, as well as invaluable for students concerned with global environmental problems and climate governance. This title is also available as Open Access via Cambridge Core.

Kari De Pryck is a lecturer at the University of Geneva. She is interested in knowledge production on global environmental problems and has been studying the IPCC’s internal workings since 2013.

Mike Hulme is a professor of human geography at the University of Cambridge. He has spent his career studying climate change. In 2007 he received a personal certificate from the Nobel Committee marking his ‘significant contribution’ to the work of the IPCC, which received a joint award of the Nobel Peace Prize that year. He is the author of Why We Disagree About Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, 2009).