4. Rethinking IPCC Expertise from a Multi-actor Perspective

Since the adoption of the United Nations Paris Agreement, scientists have been confronted with a difficult question. The needs for expertise have changed. The Paris Agreement is based on a bottom-up approach that, to be successful, requires extending and reinforcing the existing process for including expertise. Better understanding how the climate system works and its impact on societies remains a priority. However, the real challenge for effective implementation of programs that integrate mitigation and adaptation actions is to operationalize existing knowledge across temporal and spatial scales that take into consideration the realities of a range of actors, at the scale at which they operate. This raises the question of whether the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can answer these new needs without rethinking part of its organization. That is the issue this chapter explores, based on the experience of the authors, who work together at the interface between science and policy in the framework of the French Association for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR French platform), as a researcher, engineer or public officer in the French administration.