Solutions to the problem of climate change require understanding both the physical mechanisms that shape the climate system and the social mechanisms for inducing changes in human behavior to keep societies within livable limits. Climate change governance depends, among other things, on the timely provision of relevant expert knowledge about climate systems as well as mitigation and adaptation policies. There is a burgeoning literature from a variety of literatures (political science, STS, philosophy, economics, geography, sociology, engineering, natural sciences) about the nature of expert knowledge and its contributions to climate change governance. We welcome contributions from each.

In terms of theory building, a focus on expert knowledge provides access to the sources of public policy, and how states and other actors recognize and formulate their interests and preferences. Understanding the impact of expert knowledge on climate governance requires both conceptual clarity and appropriate methodologies for studying the policy process. Experts’ influence and persuasion are shaped by feedback between political deliberations and knowledge creation, relationships among different forms of knowledge, and the role and nature of power. This plays out differently in different political cultures, and awareness of country-specific contexts should inform case study evidence.

In particular, there is a need for better understanding of several questions:

1) What is the interplay between politics and knowledge? How do political concerns create and shape knowledge? How does knowledge shape the politically possible?

2) What is the process by which politics and knowledge interact? Is it through a process of mobilization, delegation or co-production?

3) How has expert knowledge shaped climate practices? What kind of expert knowledge was relevant: for instance scientific, engineering, administrative, or experiential knowledge?

4) What are the respective contributions of natural science and social science expertise to the development of effective climate change governance?

5) Who is deemed an expert by whom? What are the consequences of ignoring some bodies of expertise?

6) By what means is expertise relayed to and included in the policy making process? How can the aggregation and presentation of expert knowledge be organized to maximize its meaningful impact?

7) What are the processes by which relevant ideas are generated, diffused, and adopted by communities of experts?

8) How important is it to reach out to the mass publics with expert information about climate change? How is this best performed?

9) What are innovative techniques for studying the impact of expertise on climate governance?

10) What is the role of contestation in the creation and reception of expert knowledge?

11) How does scientific knowledge interact with other forms of knowledge?

12) What is the role for experts in climate change after the IPCC science has become consensual and categorical?

13) How does the knowledge created by the IPCC relate to advisory committees and reports on a national level?

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Frontiers in Climate

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