Introducing the Topical Collection: 'Climate change communication and the IPCC'

Abstract

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is widely regarded as the most important and authoritative source on climate change, its impacts and how to tackle the rising emissions that drive it. With this authority comes a responsibility to ensure the information is communicated effectively to policymakers, citizens and those who rely on the information for their lives and livelihoods. How the IPCC communicates the information in its reports via its official materials (e.g. Summary for Policymakers, presentations, FAQs), through different channels (e.g. interaction with journalists, social media, outreach events in different countries) and to its main audience of policymakers as well as others (including media, business, NGOs, education) has been the subject of intense analysis in the past. How different types of evidence are included in IPCC reports, particularly indigenous and local knowledge, is also a rich vein of discussion. Similarly, the representativeness of the leadership, staff and author teams in terms of gender, geographical balance and diversity of expert perspectives is key to ensuring all voices are heard and all relevant evidence is considered.

The IPCC has a long history of asking the research and global communications communities for input to its evolving communications strategy. In 2016, the IPCC convened an Expert Meeting on Communication, which led to a number of recommendations to enhance IPCC communications activities, strategy and capacity (IPCC 2016; see also Lynn and Peeva, this issue). With the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) cycle nearing completion,Footnote 1 now is an important moment to, once again, take stock of the evolving IPCC communications strategy, a time to critically reflect on successes, challenges, lessons learned and best practice for future reports. We also intend for this Topical Collection (TC) to speak to other institutions seeking to further their climate science engagement efforts at global, national, regional and local scales.