Epilogue, IPCC and communication

Abstract

The InterAcademy Council (IAC) conducted independent review of the IPCC's procedures and processes, and released its recommendations on August 30, 2010. In this chapter, the author focuses on IPCC's communication strategy, one of five key recommendations of IAC, as miscommunication about the role of IPCC has sometimes caused serious misunderstandings among decision makers, climate negotiators, and mass media, which may have misled climate negotiations, especially with respect to the target of the response strategies. IPCC's role is to provide policy relevant but not policy prescriptive information to various stakeholders. In this context, IPCC would have never recommended nor concluded any target or policy measures. The author stresses the importance of IPCC's communication strategy. In the last part of this chapter, "Views on the Scientific Findings of IPCC Assessment Reports" by concerned Japanese scientists is attached. © Springer-Verlag London 2012.