The politics of anticipation: the IPCC and the negative emissions technologies experience

2018/01/01 by Silke Beck, Martin Mahony · 1 voice · 6 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Environmental Science · Social Sciences · #Climate Change Policy and Economics #Climate Change and Geoengineering #Social Acceptance of Renewable Energy

paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/sus.2018.7

openalex publication_date 2018/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15

Abstract

Non-technical summary In the post-Paris political landscape, the relationship between science and politics is changing. We discuss what this means for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), using recent controversies over negative emissions technologies (NETs) as a window into the fraught politics of producing policy-relevant pathways and scenarios. We suggest that pathways and scenarios have a ‘world-making’ power, potentially shaping the world in their own image and creating new political realities. Assessment bodies like the IPCC need to reflect on this power, and the implications of changing political contexts, in new ways.

Citations

• International Atomic Energy Agency
• Developing a framework for responsible innovation
• Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy coordination
• “Opening Up” and “Closing Down”
• Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists
• States of Knowledge

Cited by

• Understanding the mechanisms that exclude indigenous knowledges from the IPCC reports
• In tech we trust: A history of technophilia in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) climate mitigation expertise
• Making global environmental assessments fit for future challenges
• Reassessing the need for carbon dioxide removal: moral implications of alternative climate target pathways
• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: Guardian of Climate Science
• Three Decades of Climate Mitigation: Why Haven't We Bent the Global Emissions Curve?

Discussions

• Scenario methods (like models) have a complicated legacy: they did (and do) help to think through consequences of intended policies, but they also have their own "politics of anticipation" (doi.org/10 [bsky, 3 points, 1 comments]

Related

• The IPCC and the Politics of Writing Climate Change
• The IPCC and the challenge of ex post policy evaluation
• In tech we trust: A history of technophilia in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) climate mitigation expertise
• Actors, activities, and forms of authority in the IPCC
• Climate change: What do we know about the IPCC?