Guardian and FAZ on policy advice: Focus on solutions

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has a new chair: the South Korean economist Hoesung Lee. Under his leadership the panel aims to strengthen exploring solutions for climate change, not only describing its causes. The German national daily “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” (FAZ) writes that now a change is imminent, “that scientific policy advice has never experienced before.”

Thereby, the paper refers to an article only recently published by MCC Director Ottmar Edenhofer and MCC Group Leader on Governance, Christian Flachsland, in the scientific journal “Science”. There they advocated for more policy relevance in climate assessments by the IPCC. They should become more relevant to the decision-makers and leaner as well as assuming a greater role in presenting solutions to climate change.

In addition to the article the paper also runs a Q&A interview with Edenhofer in its online edition. It was picked up by "The Guardian" and translated into English. In the interview the MCC Director explains that he doesn’t want to politicize climate research. But the IPCC should provide more “knowledge relevant for decision making”. “However, this is only possible, if on the one hand science is independent and on the other hand the governments don’t demand justification from science for decisions allegedly without alternatives. We need to have a better understanding of what political instruments worked and which didn’t.”