ABSTRACT
Since the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988, the relationship between climate research, politics, and public awareness of climate change issues has reached a new level of global interlacing. The so-called ‘climate conspiracy’ has gained significant public support, in particular since a few factual errors and inaccuracies were discovered in the Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, casting doubt on the whole climate science (Cogley et al. 2010). Epistemic communities are networks of knowledge-based experts who help decision-makers identify and define emerging problems, formulate various policy solutions available, and assess the outcomes of such policies to decide the feasibility of those to be implemented (Adler and Haas 1992). Such networks of knowledge-based experts also exist regarding climate research. Climate change negotiations relying on assessments from the IPCC, for instance, are a complex process.
