Biodiversity and Climate policy: Interacademy Council review of IPCC

The Interacademy Council has produced a review of IPCC that will be considered in Busan in October.  Interesting to consider possible implications for the development of the possible Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) - if the General Assembly decide to proceed with this.  Review is available from IAC and the Royal Society website.  /...

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The first couple of recommendations focus on an executive committee and executive director.  Then two recommendations on review mechanisms - again of interest for IPBES.

The next recommendations are of interest for communicating biodiversity science in a risk context for policy audiences:

• All Working Groups should use the
  qualitative level-of-understanding scale in their Summary for Policy Makers and
  Technical Summary, as suggested in IPCC’s uncertainty guidance for the Fourth
  Assessment Report. This scale may be supplemented by a quantitative probability
  scale, if appropriate.
• Quantitative probabilities (as in the
  likelihood scale) should be used to describe the probability of well-defined
  outcomes only when there is sufficient evidence. Authors should indicate the
  basis for assigning a probability to an outcome or event (e.g., based on
  measurement, expert judgment, and/or model runs).

And a final recommendation on communications strategy.