Jan 6, 2025 08:59 PM
(This post was last modified: Jan 6, 2025 09:00 PM by C C.)
The secret behind Europe's outsized influence in climate science and policy
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the...s-outsized
EXCERPTS: IAMs [integrated assessment modelling] are useful for producing scenarios of alternative futures that integrate a large number of assumptions and dynamics. These scenarios include projections of future carbon dioxide (and other) emissions that are used as inputs to further modeling efforts.
[...] The figure below shows the overwhelming role of European institutions in developing and hosting IAMs. More IAMs means more groups doing IAM research, more papers published in the literature, a greater role for that research in scientific assessments, and more opportunities to extend the reach of IAMs beyond climate science and into settings like banking and finance, corporate governance, and a wide range of government policy making.
[...] Why might it matter that most climate scenarios come from Europe-based IAMs?
Simple — because IAMs are so crucial to earth system modeling, projections of climate impacts, options for and economics of mitigation, and so on. Consequently, those who produce IAMs have an outsized, and largely out-of-sight, role in climate science and policy.
[...] Because of the dominance of European IAMs, aggregated statistics of scenarios show preferences for wind and solar and disfavor nuclear.2 It would be easy to conclude that this outcome is a result of technological or economic dynamics of the real world as processed through sophisticated models.
Instead, such results may simply reflect European values and biases, baked into the fabric of individual IAMs, which have so much complexity that it is difficult for independent observers to tease out how values and politics might influence assumptions and model construction.
[...] Once again, we see that the climate research community faces serious challenges when it comes to scenarios which are out-of-date, geographically biased, perpetuate inequities, and under the narrow control of a small group of scholars.... (MORE - details)
https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the...s-outsized
EXCERPTS: IAMs [integrated assessment modelling] are useful for producing scenarios of alternative futures that integrate a large number of assumptions and dynamics. These scenarios include projections of future carbon dioxide (and other) emissions that are used as inputs to further modeling efforts.
[...] The figure below shows the overwhelming role of European institutions in developing and hosting IAMs. More IAMs means more groups doing IAM research, more papers published in the literature, a greater role for that research in scientific assessments, and more opportunities to extend the reach of IAMs beyond climate science and into settings like banking and finance, corporate governance, and a wide range of government policy making.
[...] Why might it matter that most climate scenarios come from Europe-based IAMs?
Simple — because IAMs are so crucial to earth system modeling, projections of climate impacts, options for and economics of mitigation, and so on. Consequently, those who produce IAMs have an outsized, and largely out-of-sight, role in climate science and policy.
[...] Because of the dominance of European IAMs, aggregated statistics of scenarios show preferences for wind and solar and disfavor nuclear.2 It would be easy to conclude that this outcome is a result of technological or economic dynamics of the real world as processed through sophisticated models.
Instead, such results may simply reflect European values and biases, baked into the fabric of individual IAMs, which have so much complexity that it is difficult for independent observers to tease out how values and politics might influence assumptions and model construction.
[...] Once again, we see that the climate research community faces serious challenges when it comes to scenarios which are out-of-date, geographically biased, perpetuate inequities, and under the narrow control of a small group of scholars.... (MORE - details)