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Climate change: Embed the social sciences in climate policy


David G. Victor calls for the IPCC process to be extended to include insights into controversial social and behavioural issues.

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Illustration by David Parkins
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is becoming irrelevant to climate policy. By seeking consensus and avoiding controversy, the organization is suffering from the streetlight effect — focusing ever more attention on a well-lit pool of the brightest climate science. But the insights that matter are out in the darkness, far from the places that the natural sciences alone can illuminate.
Nature
 
520,
 
27–29
 
()
 
doi:10.1038/520027a

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