Disciplinarity and climate change : An analysis of IPCC's assessment of the international climate change research

• This paper presents a quantitative analysis of the references used in the third assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). IPCC is one of the most well-known and influential institutions in the climate change arena. The formal role of IPCC is to assess comprehensive and objective policy-relevant scientific knowledge to serve but not guide the politics of climate change. This however is a traditional view of science as objective knowledge producer separated from values, power and interests - a view questioned in recent social studies of science, among others. In contrast to this science can be seen as actively participating in discourses about the way we view climate change, value it as a environmental problem, and how resulting problems should be solved. IPCC is seen not as an objective and neutral institution but as a boundary organisation “translating” between the scientific and political community of the climate change regime, influencing science and politics of climate change. This paper uses quantitative analysis to show which disciplines are dominating the IPCC assessment. The underlaying assumption is that different disciplines have different knowledge, views and values about climate change. The main conclusion is that natural scientists, especially climatologists are dominating the assessment, quantitatively, but also structurally. The next IPCC assessment (climate change 2007) should gain by a closer collaboration and integration between natural and social science and a broader view of and stronger position for the social sciences.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Övrig annan samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Klimatforskning (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Climate Research (hsv//eng)

Keyword

climate change

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

disciplinarity

science studies

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)