Values and objectivity in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Jebeile, Julie (2020). Values and objectivity in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Social epistemology : a journal of knowledge, culture and policy, 34(5), pp. 453-468. Taylor & Francis 10.1080/02691728.2020.1779380

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The assessments issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) aim to provide policy-makers with an objective source of information about the various causes of climate change, the projected consequences for the environment and human affairs, and the options for adaptation and mitigation. But what, in this context, is meant by “objective”? In practice, in an effort to address internal and external criticisms, the IPCC has regularly revised its methodological procedures; some of these procedures seem to meet the requirements of objectivity, at least as understood in a specific sense, but the relationship between objectivity and value-neutrality requires further investigation. The aim of this paper is to offer an appropriate philosophical account of objectivity, reconcilable with the fact that the IPCC is not value-free. I argue that Sandra Harding’s notion of strong objectivity is particularly well suited to this goal, and I examine the extent to which the current IPCC procedures match her account.

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