How science diplomacy can help combat climate change

As we find ourselves in the hottest year on record, it might be a good time to reassess our current progress on climate change and discuss potential tools necessary to find new avenues forward. Science diplomacy could play a key role in helping to address this problem.

Why science diplomacy?

Science diplomacy uses scientific collaborations among nations and peoples to address common, shared problems and to build constructive international partnerships to achieve this. In this sense, science can play important role in foreign policy and diplomacy, and vice versa.

IIASA and science diplomacy

IIASA’s DNA is strongly linked to science diplomacy. The foundation of the Institute is a perfect example of diplomacy for science, as IIASA was originally established to create East-West collaboration during the Cold War through scientific research unbound by specific national political agendas. After the Cold War, the Institute broadened its mandate to achieve a greater global focus.

Today, IIASA brings together a wide range of scientific skills from around the globe to provide science-based insights into critical policy issues in international and national debates on global change. This approach can be seen as an extension of IIASA’s goals toward science in diplomacy as embodied in the Vienna Statement on Science Diplomacy a document that emerged from discussions held during a unique IIASA 50th Anniversary Science Diplomacy Event in 2022. The statement presents a unified vision for the future of science diplomacy, highlights the advantages it offers in addressing today's global challenges, and defines the principles necessary to promote science diplomacy on a global scale. To date the document has been endorsed by more than 200 eminent personalities from the academic and policymaking community.

Science diplomacy and climate change

Experts and scientists often refer to the multifaceted problems we are facing today as complex or wicked problems. Characteristically these problems have hard-to-define system boundaries as they regularly span across different regions, nations, societies, and decades. Therefore, national or standalone solutions might mitigate some effects, but never solve these crises. Systems analysis provides a way to better understand these problems.

The climate crisis is but one example of such a wicked problem, and has kept scientists, governments, and civil society busy for decades. It seems that the full magnitude of the problem only recently came to the attention of a larger number of people, spurring protests and activism, climate anxiety, and sustainability concerns in business and policy. But are current efforts enough, and what is needed to further facilitate climate action?

Much of current climate change mitigation is founded on national action, but from a problem-solving perspective, it requires new methods of international cooperation and diplomacy, as no single nation can tackle climate change on its own.

Diplomacy provides the tools to initiate, support, and secure international cooperation. To address this, some countries including Japan, the United Kingdom, and the USA have appointed science advisors as formal positions within their foreign ministries. This might just be the right governance approach to extend work internationally in close collaboration with national ministries.

Extensive cooperation will be needed globally, as climate change is not only international but a global issue. In the best-case scenario, science diplomacy can address the gap at the boundary of diplomacy and science and operationalize solutions for this socio-environmental challenge. It might also lead to diplomacy staying up to date on the latest climate science and therefore enhances the legitimacy of international diplomacy, which in turn is necessary to create the basis for fruitful, long-term cooperation.

Science diplomacy is consequently essential to solving what is arguably the greatest crisis of our time. While science informed policy is not a new concept, the findings of scientists, as in science in diplomacy, may still need more recognition from policy institutions and governments to facilitate effective climate action.

New frontiers

The traditional approach of relying predominantly on science in diplomacy, in other words, relying on scientists to inform policymakers about climate change, could be complemented by more diplomacy for science approaches like the approach embodied by organizations such as IIASA to fully address the crisis.

It may seem self-evident that national scientific institutes should continue to engage in international scientific collaboration, yet this still remains a relatively underutilized avenue. From a climate scientist’s perspective, it is worth considering that current efforts in climate change mitigation and adaptation could benefit from further integration by willing coalitions among research institutes and foreign ministries.

In this context, the momentum of science diplomacy that was developed during the Cold War and has recently gained traction again, offers many advantages for solving the complex problems we face today.

Note: This article gives the view of the author, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.