Guest article by Radhika Chatterjee, Senior Researcher, Third World Network
At the recently concluded UN climate talks held in Bonn, Germany, the ‘science vs equity’ debate became one of the key fights amongst countries, with the prospect of the deployment of large-scale land-based Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) playing an increasingly central and controversial role.
The door to geoengineering technologies is being opened in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) climate talks through negotiations related to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. But, this June also saw heated discussions related to CDR in negotiations under the ‘Research and Systematic Observation’ (RSO) workstream.
The pitting of science against equity is not new, and has happened in the past in other fora, as well in climate related negotiations. For example, during the approval of the summary for policy makers of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) ‘Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C,’ which relys on the deployment of large scale land based CDR, among other things, the United States objected to contextualising collective efforts towards limiting global warming to 1.5 °C by reference to the principle of equity, because it felt the principle was not grounded in science.
In the RSO negotiations this Bonn, there were two main issues in which equity was pitted against science. One was in the context of further research on climate modelling scenarios, and the other on the need for addressing the implications of large-scale land-based CDR on food security in developing countries in the context of scenarios where global warming overshoots 1.5°C.
The need for considering equity (in line with the core principles of the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement) in such scenarios is important because they are used to project future pathways for limiting global warming and the associated impacts of climate change, and are subsequently used for influencing public policies across the world. Existing analysis shows that when such models do not account for equity due to the assumptions they make, they project highly unequal futures between the Global North and South.
Another problem related to the assumptions made in such climate models is their reliance on the deployment of large-scale land and ocean based CDR, including geoengineered approaches.
In the RSO negotiations, countries have to agree on the messages they will convey to the scientific community for further work in climate science, keeping in mind the research and capacity building needs of developing countries. However, after two weeks of heated negotiations, which saw science being pitted against equity repeatedly, the final decision failed to acknowledge the need for incorporating equity in future climate modelling scenarios.
Is climate modelling being done so equitably?
Parties representing developed countries like the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom (UK) were keen to highlight the advances that have been made in climate modelling research, and said that a lot of work has already occurred in terms of incorporating equity into climate modelling. In fact, the EU even stated that it would not support identifying the need for including equity in climate modelling as a research gap that needs to be addressed in the RSO text. It was supported by the UK in this.
Developing countries like India, Kenya and the Arab Group on the other hand stressed the glaring gap that exists in this area of research and emphasised the need for addressing it. The importance of this became clear as the discussions moved into the issue of addressing overshoot scenarios, which underpin policy support for CDR.
The Alliance of Small Island Developing States (AOSIS) and the Least Developing Countries (LDCs) were keen to include a message on overshoot scenarios with a focus on limiting temperature rise to 1.5°C, minimising the duration of the period by which 1.5°C is overshot, and bringing back temperature rise to 1.5°C by the end of this century. They were supported by the EU and UK in this.
However, developing countries like India, Kenya, and the Arab Group pointed out that scenarios that are aimed at limiting overshoot of 1.5°C and bringing warming back to 1.5°C rely on the use of large-scale land-based CDR. This would have serious implications for food security in developing countries whose lands would be used for such activities. They therefore wanted to ensure that any message that focused on developing scenarios related to limiting overshoot of 1.5°C should also explicitly address concerns linked to the use of large-scale land-based CDR.
India also pointed out that these concerns were addressed in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Working Group III report, which covers the impacts of large-scale land-based CDR on food security, biodiversity, and livelihoods. It also states explicitly the need for considering rural poverty and food insecurity as being central to Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (AFOLU) mitigation, since a large number of farms in the world are constituted of small-scale land holdings of less than two hectares,1 and points out that the largest impacts of AFOLU based mitigation on food security are expected to occur in Sub Saharan Africa and Asia.2
A 2024 paper published in Climate Policy has shown how the lack of equity in climate modelling scenarios in the IPCC’s AR6 projects disparities between the Global North and South till 2050. Due to the assumptions made in the scenarios, they assume low levels of energy consumption for decades for Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia while developed countries would continue to emit at levels higher than their fair share of the global carbon budget.
What this means is that developing countries will bear a much higher share of the mitigation burden, even as developed countries continue overusing the global carbon budget far beyond their fair share. It is precisely such kinds of climate injustice that the principle of equity seeks to address, by ensuring that a disproportionate share of the mitigation burden does not fall on developing countries, as they did not cause the climate crisis the world is facing today.
The integrity of climate information: Misinformation and disinformation
Another point of disagreement amongst countries was the issue of climate misinformation and disinformation. The EU, supported by the UK, AOSIS and LDCs wanted to include a message on the importance of climate information integrity and the need for countering misinformation and disinformation.
Although India, Kenya and the Arab Group agreed with the importance of the issue, they asked for the inclusion of more explanations of terms like ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’, as these could be misused. India pointed out that it was told in another negotiation room that speaking about the importance of the carbon budget was equivalent to spreading ‘misinformation’. This despite the fact that carbon budget analysis was considered as evidence in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5).
Kenya said that using these terms without proper clarifications could be used to suppress scientific debate, especially if one is questioning the status quo at any given point of time by accusing such voices of being guilty of spreading misinformation. Kenya instead suggested focusing on countering climate denialism, especially in certain regions, to address this issue, and the Arab Group also cautioned against the weaponisation of these terms. However, these suggestions did not make it into the final text.
In the current age of a ‘post truth’ world, no one in their right mind would oppose the need for countering misinformation and disinformation. However, when it comes to making advances in science, engaging in debates based on rigorous research is a critical aspect of the process. As Thomas Kuhn pointed out in his book ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions’—published some 60 years ago—substantive advances in science occur only in periods of debate and turmoil when challenges are mounted against existing intellectual frameworks, resulting in the emergence of new paradigms.
Consider, for instance, the experience of an Indian Physicist, Jagdis Chandra Bose, back in 1900. Using experimental methods of physics, he was the first person to show that plants respond to stimuli, just like animals. However, when he presented his findings at the Royal Society in England, his findings were rejected by the established physiologists of that time, not because they found any faults in the methods he used, but simply because his work challenged the existing consensus on the topic amongst physiologists.3
I share Professor Bose’s experience here to emphasise that the point India and Kenya were making about safeguarding scientific debate is also a matter of equity – particularly in how science is produced and advanced. Scientists from the Global South often face significant challenges in putting their work forward, more so when it is pioneering in nature. It is therefore essential to safeguard their ability to engage in rigorous scientific debate.
Looking ahead to COP31
At COP31 in Turkiye, the science vs equity debate is likely to continue to be a major point of controversy. RSO negotiations will focus on Earth Information Day, which is conducted annually during the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) sessions. As overshoot scenarios become a question of “how big” rather than “whether”, and global mitigation efforts rely more and more heavily on land and ocean-based removals to balance carbon budgets, the large-scale deployment of CDR will undoubtedly continue to add fuel to the science vs equity controversy.
