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Info Service on Climate Change (Oct26/01) Dear Friends, New Article: Who shapes climate science? The equity question facing the IPCC We are pleased to announce the release of a new article, in the Climate Home News, “Who shapes climate science? The equity question facing the IPCC”, by TWN Deputy Director, Meena Raman and Leon Sealy-Huggins, Senior Campaigner, War on Want. The sixty fifth meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is taking place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from October 12 – 16,th 2026. At this meeting countries are deliberating upon the timeline of IPCC’s seventh assessment report (AR7). This timely article shows why equity is important in how science is produced, particularly when it shapes global climate policies. Arguing that speed cannot be the only consideration in IPCC’s work, it points out the importance of asking whose research informs IPCC’s work, whether scientists from developing countries can participate meaningfully, and how its findings shape global climate policy. According to this article, equity is not only about who participates. It also concerns the assumptions behind scientific models, the development pathways they describe and how their findings are subsequently used. In the mitigation scenarios assessed in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), the IPCC itself acknowledges that most scenarios do not explicitly incorporate assumptions about global equity, environmental justice or income distribution within regions. These scenarios draw on assumptions about development, technology and mitigation, and can shape climate policies. The IPCC calls them projections, not predictions or forecasts. Yet when global emissions pathways become reference points in UN climate decisions, the distinction between projected outcomes and an equitable distribution of responsibilities can blur. Including findings from such models in international climate decisions without their caveats is problematic because those caveats make it clear that the assumptions in those models affect how future energy use, emissions reductions and development opportunities are distributed across regions.
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