While the details of the new Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate remain to be released, the prospect of a new international agreement on climate change suggests the possibly of competition with the Kyoto Protocol, despite some diplomatic words to the contrary. Some environmental groups, and some UK and Australian officials certainly see the new agreement as an alternative to Kyoto. While there will no doubt be plenty of opportunities to debate the new agreement, its very existence may create a crisis of allegiance for the scientific community. In other words, the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) exists to support decision makers on climate change, and has a formal goal of being “policy neutral”. We’ve criticized this charade on numerous occasions (e.g., see this paper). But facing the prospect of two competing international agreements on climate change, can the IPCC maintain the pretension of “policy neutrality”? I don’t think so. At long last the IPCC may have to explicitly consider issues of policy, and if so, this would be a very good thing.


Some of the tensions facing the IPCC and its position with respect to international climate politics can be seen in recent contradictory statements of its chairman, Rajendra Pachauri.

Earlier this month he stated that India could not participate in the Kyoto Protocol, “We are not historically responsible for this problem. So the first steps have to be taken by those who are historically responsible — the developed countries.” This statement indicates that he believes that there is no path forward for developing countries under Kyoto, as the justification he gives for India (low per-capita emissions) certainly holds in well-over half the world where emissions are growing fastest. He then subsequently contradicts this statement by criticizing the new Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APPADC) as an alternative to Kyoto, claiming that, “it should not undermine the Kyoto Protocol that has been agreed the world over as the mechanism to tackle climate change.” Obviously, if India has rejected Kyoto then it has not been agreed to “the world over.” He then says something else that contradicts this criticism of the APPADC, “”I think [the APPADC] is a good idea because the development of these technologies is important and I’ve always said there has to be a partnership between North and South in these technologies. This is one way of working together It does not interfere with the Kyoto protocol.” These are the statements of a politician walking a tight rope, and not particularly well, I’d say.

The IPCC is of the UN body and so to is the Kyoto Protocol (and its parent, the Climate Convention). Some have argued that the IPCC is in practice a subsidiary body to the Climate Convention, despite its language of neutrality. If there are in fact competing international approaches to climate policy, then the IPCC’s leadership will have some important decisions to make: Support Kyoto or the APPADC? Support them both? If so, how? It is well understood that science is not neutral with respect to political and policy debates, the very framing of questions can lends support or opposition to particular political agendas. So there is no “hiding behind science” on this issue. Pachauri’s recent conflicting statements indicate the challenges facing the community. But perhaps the best news in all of this, regardless of the merits of the Asia-Pacific agreement, is that at long last the scientific community will have to grapple with its role in the policy process.