**4. An assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change**

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) defines itself as an "international body for the assessment of climate change [...] established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to provide the world with a clear scientific view on the current state of knowledge in climate change and its potential environmental and socio-economic impacts". Its constitution assures that it is both "a scientific body [which] reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information produced worldwide relevant to the understanding of climate change" and intergovernmental, in the sense that "governments participate in the review process and the plenary Sessions" (IPCC, ND). The Panel was the recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize "for [its] efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" (Nobel Foundation, ND).

The Panel's dual constitution as a scientific body in which governments take part has been suggested to offer a new model for the science-policy interface stressing extensive public reviews (e.g. Saloranta, 2001). Yet, the socio-political nature of its procedures seems to be easily eluded when its achievements are seen as the result of the objectivity of its scientific results alone (e.g. Houghton, 2008). The IPCC workings are not immune to the debate involving the problem of making political choices, most notably suggestions of a "technocratic policy orientation to [the] climate change [problem]" (e.g. Shackley et al, 1998). Despite disputes involving the Panel, it is considered a very respectable body since its foundation, as demonstrated by it being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the testimonies of several public persons (e.g. Thatcher, 1990), and appraisals of the effectiveness of its contribution to the climate change debate (e.g. Saloranta, 2001).

Notwithstanding the wide public recognition of its "technical" contribution to the climate change debate, it is suggested here that seeing it as a predominantly technical-scientific body can elude the nature of its dual constituency and can be misleading. Indeed, the Panel's mission statement asserting that it "reviews and assesses the most recent scientific, technical and socio-economic information", and the analyses focussing on the nature of its "reviewing" procedure (e.g. Saloranta, 2001) may conceal the fact that it has been built on a privileged relationship with the socio-political world based on sharing the meanings of a number of concepts between the scientific field and the social world. It is proposed that these shared concepts – those of detection and attribution of climate change, and emissions scenarios – played a crucial role in the very institution of IPCC, as well as on the success of public mobilization around the climate change issue. It is further postulated that this can be apprehended based on the double hermeneutic concept of Giddens (2001) summarized in section 3.1.

Two Cultures, Multiple Theoretical Perspectives:

The Problem of Integration of Natural and Social Sciences in Earth System Research 17

involving multiple dimensions, whose solution may be expected to be provided by instrumental means – methods - which would allow to carry Earth Systems studies to a new level, and to formulate new strategies and solutions to face issues like the climate change. This chapter attempted to examine a few basic differences between that the natural and the social sciences, whose understanding is expected to contribute to the goal of responding to societal and political aspects of the changing E.S. problem by taking into account, in particular, the different understandings of the concept of method. It attempted to show to the reader a variety of perspectives concerning how the social world can be understood, from the point of view of the process of investigation, but, also, admitting that different logical, epistemological, ontological and political perspectives are part of the "logic" of the social world for which the meanings of environmental change have ultimately to emerge. In conclusion, there are three final points that might be stressed here. First, the proposed approach to analyze the workings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change attempted to put in evidence that climate change is something relevant for both science and the social world, suggesting that more than just providing assessments of climate change, scientists have been engaged in some kind of dialectical exercise in which the scientists and the social world have ended up sharing a small number of key concepts, and have been similarly conscious of the huge uncertainties facing both science and society in relation to climate change. Second, it is necessary to make it clear that the admission of a variety of perspectives concerning the social world does not attempt to demonstrate that "truth is a relative concept" (e.g. Verosub, 2010), or that political aspects of responding to climate change can be reduced to a matter of supposedly objective cost-benefit analysis (e.g. Beven, 2011). In contrast, it is proposed that the social world is capable of attributing meaning and is imbued of intent, and the more this capacity is recognized and exercised, the greater the likelihood that the social world will respond to the climate change issue, although not without its own contradictions, its own inequities, its own aspirations and intents. Finally, it is suggested that this proposition is part of what the two cultures can attempt to develop as some kind of strategy shared with society towards the problem of the changing Earth System, and understanding the nature of this challenge is one of the key contributions that

might be expected from the social sciences and their multiple methods.

students and colleagues that have helped to discuss and develop these ideas.

I would like to express my gratitude to the book editors, for the clear indication of the parts of the text that needed revision and clarification to be more intelligible to a larger, multidisciplinary audience of scientists, and to Josefina Moraes and Roberto Araújo for their comments and suggestions to an earlier version of this chapter. This work is the result of several years of investigating and teaching environmental, climate and land change topics at the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), and I am indebted to my post-graduate

Aguiar, J.H.C.M. (2009). Hamlet e Próspero: indivíduo, sociedade e intelectual em Anthony Giddens e Pierre Bourdieu, *Revista Ensaios*, Vol. 2, pp. 1-12. Retrieved from http://www.uff.br/periodicoshumanas/index.php/ensaios/information/readers

**6. Acknowledgment** 

**7. References** 

Indeed, the concepts of detection and attribution7 – have clear shared meanings for both the political world and the scientific field, following the dialectics assumed by Giddens, in which the impact of the social sciences appears when "socio-scientific concepts [end up being selectively absorbed] by the social world, to which such concepts [become] a constitutive part" (2001: 112; my translation from the Brazilian edition). In addition, it can be observed that attribution of climate change to human action depends on the shared understanding of the uncertainties intrinsic to climate modelling. This dialectics is manifested in the importance attributed to detection and attribution in both the technical and the political discourses, which can be documented by the generalized and continuing use of these concepts, as central elements of both scientific investigation and political deliberation as can be found, for example, in Houghton & Morel (1984), Thatcher (1990), and in the scientific reports of IPCC WG1 (IPCC, 1990, 1996, 2001, 2007).

The role of the concept of emissions scenarios8 (i.e. scenarios of emissions of greenhouse gases as defined, for example, in IPCC, 2000), can be understood in similar terms. In this case, it also presents particular interest because it offers the prospect of descriptions of the future which would be immediately shared with the social world, but manifestly have not the status of predictions, since the result of the reproduction and evolution of the social world is admittedly uncertain for anyone. Emissions scenarios, more particularly, serve to at least two purposes – as qualitative narratives that can be associated to reference ranges of emissions necessary to parameterize GCM models, and as an idea reflecting the unpredictability of emissions produced by social systems for both the scientific field and the social world itself.

In comparison to other analyses, which put emphasis on the IPCC review procedures, for example, those assuming an "'Extended Peer Community' [where] various stakeholders with various perspectives [...] are brought into the dialogue assessing the input from science to decision-making" (Saloranta, 2001: 492), the double hermeneutic framework may consider that some core issues pertaining to IPCC work are not *a posteriori* deliberated by society. On the contrary, here it is assumed that shared concepts have emerged in a social world in which the scientists are embedded. The success in arriving at some shared concepts does not presupposes consensual, definite and comprehensive responses as a result of the production of "objective" knowledge by science, and the dialectics assumed by the double hermeneutics can potentially recognize situations of conflict, contradictions, and the result of different mobilizations in relation to the environmental change issue (e.g. Alves, 2008; Alves, 2010; Schor, 2008; Shackley et al, 1998).

#### **5. Conclusion**

The societal and political aspects of the problem of the changing Earth System have represented a major challenge for both the development of Earth System studies and to consider the question about the societal responses to climate change. In such a context, the articulation between the natural and the social sciences is also seen as a significant challenge

<sup>7</sup>Here, detection will be understood as detection of climate change, in particular, temperature, and attribution as attributing climate change to specific causes, in particular, to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (Houghton & Morel 1984; IPCC, 1990).

<sup>8&</sup>quot;Scenario is a plausible description of how the future may develop, based on a coherent and internally consistent set of assumptions about key relationships and driving forces. Note that scenarios are neither predictions nor forecasts." (IPCC, 1995: 33)

involving multiple dimensions, whose solution may be expected to be provided by instrumental means – methods - which would allow to carry Earth Systems studies to a new level, and to formulate new strategies and solutions to face issues like the climate change.

This chapter attempted to examine a few basic differences between that the natural and the social sciences, whose understanding is expected to contribute to the goal of responding to societal and political aspects of the changing E.S. problem by taking into account, in particular, the different understandings of the concept of method. It attempted to show to the reader a variety of perspectives concerning how the social world can be understood, from the point of view of the process of investigation, but, also, admitting that different logical, epistemological, ontological and political perspectives are part of the "logic" of the social world for which the meanings of environmental change have ultimately to emerge.

In conclusion, there are three final points that might be stressed here. First, the proposed approach to analyze the workings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change attempted to put in evidence that climate change is something relevant for both science and the social world, suggesting that more than just providing assessments of climate change, scientists have been engaged in some kind of dialectical exercise in which the scientists and the social world have ended up sharing a small number of key concepts, and have been similarly conscious of the huge uncertainties facing both science and society in relation to climate change. Second, it is necessary to make it clear that the admission of a variety of perspectives concerning the social world does not attempt to demonstrate that "truth is a relative concept" (e.g. Verosub, 2010), or that political aspects of responding to climate change can be reduced to a matter of supposedly objective cost-benefit analysis (e.g. Beven, 2011). In contrast, it is proposed that the social world is capable of attributing meaning and is imbued of intent, and the more this capacity is recognized and exercised, the greater the likelihood that the social world will respond to the climate change issue, although not without its own contradictions, its own inequities, its own aspirations and intents. Finally, it is suggested that this proposition is part of what the two cultures can attempt to develop as some kind of strategy shared with society towards the problem of the changing Earth System, and understanding the nature of this challenge is one of the key contributions that might be expected from the social sciences and their multiple methods.
