The British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, speaking at the World Climate Conference in Geneva on 6 November 1990. | Image: Keystone

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an international network of researchers who for several decades now have been gathering together research findings, analysing them and putting them in comprehensible language. Last spring, the IPCC finalised its latest ‘Synthesis Report’ in Interlaken, condensing 10,000 pages from seven long reports into just 30 pages. These Reports, which are published every five to eight years, are large-scale examples of science communication and are cited by governments and NGOs all over the world.

Weather experts often had close connections to national defence ministries, because weather prognoses are essential to military planning. This gave them access to the highest echelons of government.

A book has now been published, entitled “A critical assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”, which explains why the IPCC is almost alone on the landscape as a research network that garners widespread attention. It describes the history of the IPCC and shows how it managed to cultivate good contacts to national governments from the very start. When the IPCC was set up in 1988, it included many researchers who were already employed by governments. They worked at official weather data centres or meteorological offices and faced the challenge of explaining to their executive authorities the scale of damage being wreaked by the vast amounts of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere.

As a recent editorial in the journal Nature explains, the members of the IPCC “were among the first researchers to have access to the kind of computing power needed for climate simulation studies — which governments tended to have”. But they also often had close connections to national defence ministries, because weather prognoses are essential to military planning. This in turn gave them access to the highest echelons of government. The very first Synthesis Report of the IPCC, published back in 1990, was presented at a seminar to the British prime minister of the day, Margaret Thatcher. The IPCC has since then succeeded in increasing the attention it receives from the powerful players on the world stage – though the challenges facing them have become much greater too.

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