Reports for IPCC policymakers 'unreadable'

Research published in Nature Climate Change

Climate change: Policy makers decide on the basis of
unreadable summaries of IPCC reports

On the eve of the opening of the COP 21 in Paris, a new study published Oct. 12 in the journal Nature Climate Change by an international team of researchers based at KEDGE Business School, University of Leeds, University of Bonn and University of Rome demonstrates that Summaries for Policymakers produced since 1990 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are too difficult to read.

The most accessible and widely read sections of the IPCC Assessment Report — the Summaries for Policymakers — should help governments frame effective laws to counter global warming. However, they continue to score poorly in terms of readability, according to new research published in Nature Climate Change. At the same time, the tone of scientific media and newspaper coverage of the reports has become increasingly negative.

"Global action on climate change might be seriously hampered because policymakers would need the equivalent of a PhD in the subject to begin to make full sense of the IPCC reports" declares Ralf Barkemeyer, Associate Professor at KEDGE BS, who led the study.

The IPCC releases an Assessment Report every five years, with an accompanying Summary for Policymakers condensing the key details for a wider audience. In recent years, the IPCC has attempted to improve its communication strategies to overcome miscommunication of these high-profile reports.

According to Ralf Barkemeyer, "if governments are not able to understand the scientific facts presented to them, how can they hope to reach consensus or joint decision?" Suraje Dessai, Professor at the University of Leeds, co-author of the study, added: "The IPCC was established to provide information on the global climate policy, but clearly he does not fulfill its mission when its summaries for policymakers are so illegible. It is failing in its task. "

The study produced a linguistic analysis summaries of IPCC Reports by applying readability metrics and comparing media coverage received by these reports in several tabloid (Daily Mail, The Mirror and The Sun) and quality newspapers (New York Times Washington Post, The Independent and The Times). The results show that as far as the information published by the IPCC in its summaries lost in readability, media representation that was made public by the press became more and more pessimistic, beyond that contained IPCC reports themselves, increasing the gap between scientists and non-scientists in their understanding of climate issues.

"IPCC summaries are so difficult to understand that they can give rise to many different interpretations on the same point. They can easily be misinterpreted by climate change skeptics, for example. If these summaries were simpler and more accessible, the public could turn directly benefit to these documents and discover the true nature of the challenges", concludes Ralf Barkemeyer.

Reference article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2 824
(the URL will go live after the embargo ends)


About Nature Climate Change: 
Nature Climate Change is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Nature Publishing Group covering all aspects of research on global warming, especially its effects. It was established in 2011 and the editor-in-chief is Rory Howlett. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal had a 2014 impact factor (measure reflecting the relative importance of an academic journal within its field) of 14.547, ranking it 2nd out of 221 journals in the category "Environmental sciences".

About KEDGE Business School:
KEDGE Business School is a French management school with 4 campuses in France (Paris, Bordeaux, Marseille, and Toulon), 2 in China (Shanghai, Suzhou) and 4 associated campuses (Avignon, Bastia, Bayonne, Dakar). The KEDGE BS community counts 12,000 students (including 25% foreign students), 181 full-time faculty members (including 41% international), 300 international academic partners and 40,000 alumni across the world. KEDGE BS offers 31 French government certified programs and holds the triple international accreditation EQUIS, AACSB and AMBA. KEDGE BS also delivers tailor-made training programs for companies in France and abroad. www.kedgebs.com - @kedgebs - Facebook/kedgebs

Research contacts:
Dr Ralf Barkemeyer is an Associate Professor of Corporate Social Responsibility at KEDGE Business School, Bordeaux. His research focuses on the interface between business, environment and society. In particular, he is interested in the link between CSR and development as well as media representations of sustainability challenges. Ralf is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Associate Editor of Business Ethics: European Review.
Tel. +33 (0) 5 56 84 63 12 / ralf.barkemeyer@kedgebs.com

Dr Frank Figge is a Professor and heads the Research Cluster Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainable Development at KEDGE Business School. Frank Figge has been one of the early developers of the Sustainable Value approach. Before joining academia full time Frank Figge worked for asset managers and as a consultant in the field of corporate sustainability in general and sustainable finance in particular.
Tel. +33 (0) 4 91 82 79 22 / frank.figge@kedgebs.co