Risk and Uncertainty in the Climate Change Debate

Summary

On the one hand, there is a changed attitude toward nature. Today, the earth's climate is no longer seen as a naturally given order of things, which can only be observed and sudied, but is rather perceived as a mutable environmental condition in which society is imbedded, and which can be influenced by mankind. Anthropogenization of the climate by the integration of human activities leads to the consequence that the climate is seen at least partially as a product of human decisions, and its effects are discussed as a human responsibility. In society's view, the climate transforms itself from a naturally given danger to a risk depending on certain decisions.

Scientifically, the hypothesis of climate change is only insufficiently founded, methodically as well as empirically. There is consensus in the scientific community about the facts that a worldwide rise in temperatures has been registered during the past century, and that human activities also play a role in this process. Fundamental scientific uncertainty exists however: About the import of these statements, because no linear rise in temperature has been observed. And, on the other hand, it is uncertain to which extent human activity is responsible for climate change. Most statements on long-term climate change are based on computer models, with the help of which simulations of climatologically relevant aspects can be constructed, and which are combined in General Circulation Models (GCMs), which are supposed to demonstrate the dynamics of the earth's climatic system. At present there are - worldwide - 14 models of this type, all of which arrive at different results, because the data pool for the simulation is quite meager.

In order to be able to estimate the anthropogenic contribution to a possible future climate change, reliable data and prognoses on climatologically-relevant aspects of human behavior are needed. But there is very little data, and only few scenarios which are empirically tenable. The aspects mentioned above make reference only to the scientific assessment of the phenomenon of climate change. Scientific uncertainty culminates when the social and geographic consequences and the defensive strategies which are based on them are taken into consideration in research.

What is new in the case of climatological research is that this highly uncertain knowledge is produced and organized at the interface between science and and politics, and plays an important role in the process of political decision-making. In this situation, science takes on the role of formulating political problems, and itself becomes a powerful force in the political arena. The knowledge-dependency and global dimensions of climate change have produced new intermediary institutions between science and politics, in which cognitive and normative elements are inseparably amalgamated. This new institutional arrangement can be studied on the example of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC has the twofold responsibility of organizing a scientific consensus on the knowledge attainable on climate change, and - by all uncertainty - to make use of this knowledge to develop proposals for strategies of political action. With these goals, science enters the theater of conflict over political interests, and becomes itself a negotiating party in relation to politics. At the same time, politics makes itself directly dependent on science's progress, inasmuch as these political decisions directly depend on scientific knowledge in this field. Science, therefore, leaves its traditionally-assigned field of competence, and enters into competition with politics. Inasmuch as science transforms a danger - the possible negative effects of anthropogenic climate change - into a risk (by pointing out social causes and attributing the possible negative effects to societal decisions), it ignites an explosive mixture of science and politics. What is happening in this case demonstrates one of the basic characteristics of reflexive modernization - the representation of dangers as risks. With the help of computer simulations, cost accounting and social scientific prognosis methods, the consequences of an anthropogenic - and therefore politically answerable - climate change are calculated, and the political system put under pressure to make decisions.

One could call this Sub-Politics (Beck) or Self-Monitoring (Giddens) - what is important is the developing structure of politicized science. Any further research remains strapped in this harness of knowledge and decision-making. What has been shown on the example of climatological research can also be demonstrated in the case of biodiversity or of karst development - in principle, for all of the subjects of Global-Change research: As soon as changes in nature are perceived as the results of human activity, a spiral of investigation and decision-making is set in motion.

From the viewpoint of politics, the risk arises that, when it carries out its responsibilities - having to make collectively binding decisions -, it makes itself dependent on the science system, which - in the field of climate change - can provide only uncertain knowledge.

We conclude that contemporary climate science and climate policy are caught in a socially and culturally constructed dilemma. Climate change in general and change triggered by human action is a permanent, though often dormant, concern in Western societies. It can be revived at any time. Many scientists understand that knowledge about the climatic system will always be beset by significant uncertainty, because of the open and complex nature of the climatic system and the long time-scales involved. Thus climate-change science is bound to be post-nomal, characterized by a high degree of uncertainty and by high stakes, with politics and science influencing each other, and antagonistic public debates, not only among scientists, but also among activists and other non-experts (Stehr / von Strorch).