Article ID: CBB099130563

Changing climate change: The carbon budget and the modifying-work of the IPCC (February 2021)

unapi

Over the last 10 years, the concept of a global ‘carbon budget’ of allowable CO2 emissions has become ubiquitous in climate science and policy. Since it was brought to prominence by the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, the carbon budget has changed how climate change is enacted as an issue of public concern, from determining the optimal rate of future emissions to establishing a fixed limit for how much emissions should be allowed before they must be stopped altogether. Exploring the emergence of the carbon budget concept, this article shows how the assessment process of the IPCC has offered scientific experts the means to modify how the climate issue is problematized, and discusses the implications of this ‘modifying-work’ for the politics of climate change. It finds that the ‘modified climate issue’ must be seen as an outcome of the ordinary work within established scientific and political institutions, and the agency these institutions afford scientists to enact the issue differently. On this basis, it argues that the case of the carbon budget holds important insights not only for the relationship between climate science and policy, but also for the pragmatist literature on ‘issue formation’ in STS.

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Authors & Contributors
Tehya Stockman
Christian Clausen
Roumbanis, Lambros
Louise Amoore
Tom Heale
David Guile
Concepts
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Decision making
Climate change
Climate and climatology
Engineering
Technology and politics
Time Periods
21st century
20th century
20th century, late
Modern
Places
Great Britain
South Korea
United States
Europe
European Union
Soviet Union
Institutions
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
UK Committee on Climate Change
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