Content analysis of IPCC Summaries for Policymakers 2001-2022: no shift towards policy solutions

Abstract The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) regularly publishes summaries for policymakers (SPMs) following the principle of policy-neutrality. As the urgency of climate change grows, there have been calls for IPCC assessments to be more solution-oriented, which means to assess policy instruments. Yet, there is a scholarly debate regarding whether and how it is possible to discuss policy instruments while staying policy-neutral. To inform this debate we conduct a content analysis of Working Group III SPMs on mitigation published in the last two decades. We find that the SPMs contain limited content on policy instruments with little change over time. This suggests that the SPMs have not yet become more solution-oriented while abiding by their policy-neutrality principle. On the other hand, we show that SPMs have shifted from emphasizing the cost-effectiveness of mitigation towards emphasizing projections of required emissions reductions. Thus, SPM content development is consistent with the evolution of ideas in global climate negotiations. Regardless of whether it chooses to amend its policy-neutrality principle, we recommend that the IPCC still strive to be more solution-oriented. For example, the IPCC could better support the growing ecosystem of national and local boundary organizations which can broker context-specific knowledge on policy instruments.