In a sudden and unexplained change compared to previous decades, the federal government has ceased to cover the travel costs of Canadian experts by volunteering for the next Grande World Climate science assessment.
The decision to end the financing of travel means that Canadian scientists now wonder if they can still participate in the United Nations climate science process, perhaps using their own money or by diverting grant funds that could go to research and students.
“It is almost insulting for all Canadian scientists who have volunteered all these hundreds of hours each year of their personal lives,” said Robert McLeman, professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, who was a main author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (GCC) during his last assessment.
Canadian scientists who participate in IPCC reports are not paid for their work, most of which are remotely by emails and calls. But they have to travel about four to five times to meet their scientific employees, who are other experts from around the world.
The government is used to covering these travel expenses – economical class plane tickets, food and hotel stays in cities as far as Singapore or Osaka in Japan – but researchers are now left in the process of finding money elsewhere.
In a declaration to CBC, Environment and Climate Change Canada said that he was unable to commit to providing long -term travel funding for academics to participate in IPCC meetings “.
Scientists have gone in boarding
Sarah Burch, professor at the University of Waterloo who studies climate adaptation, town planning and governance, is a main author of the IPCC Coming report on climate change in cities. In this role, she made a trip – to a meeting of colleagues main authors in Osaka – which was partially covered by the government.
But he was told that no other meeting will be covered. Burch says that she will have to exploit her financing as a research chair in Canada for what she considers to be four other trips.
“As a rule, I would spend this to hire a graduate student to serve as a research assistant so that I can send them to a conference or help them publish articles,” said Burch. “So I have to redirect the funds far from students … and to this commitment to the IPCC.”
Deborah McGregor, a researcher on Aboriginal environmental justice at the University of York in Toronto, is also part of the next IPCC report on cities and says that it will have to count on funds thanks to its Excellence Canada research chair.
She said that earlier in her career when she was a deputy professor, she could not have found these funds.
“This would be the case for some researchers at the start of their career, or perhaps researchers who are more in social sciences or in particular the humanities. They do not have much research funding to be able to go to four compulsory meetings in person,” said McGregor.
This feeling is taken up by Patricia Perkins, ecological economist and professor at the University of York, who volunteered as the main author in the previous assessment of the IPCC, which, according to her, was the first time that the agency Included social science specialists largely.
She said that academics in social sciences – such as anthropology, geography and economics – would find it more difficult to find travel funding.
“This means that there is a disciplinary imbalance in which has more money, because the greater your subsidy, the more small pieces could be on the edges you can reallow for a trip to your IPCC work,” she said.
In its CBC declaration, the ECCC said that the government had provided around $ 424,000 in travel funding to support Canadian IPCC authors in the last evaluation cycle, which occurred in part during the pandemic years and involved a little less trips.
The ministry said that if the usual amount of travel had taken place, the estimated costs would be about $ 680,000 to support Canadian IPCC experts.
Why is the IPCC important?
IPCC assessment cycles, which occur approximately every five years, are considered stallion For the last global understanding of climate change – which causes it, how it affects countries and people, and how to fight it.
The first assessment of the IPCC led to the first world treaty on climate change in 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Since then, the influential GIEC reports have led to many major progress in global climate diplomacy. More recently, its evaluation of how climate change would cause inevitable damage to developing countries has led to a New dollars’ new agreement To compensate them.
“They are published in all official languages of the United Nations, which makes it a really important resource … in the countries where they do not have the advanced research infrastructure that we have here in Canada,” said McLeman.
“IPCC reports provide them with current information on the risks of climate change in their own language and is freely accessible.”
But it is a difficult task and a huge personal business for the hundreds of scientists who volunteer for each assessment. McLeman called him “having a second job for which you are not paid”.
“You spend hundreds of hours a year doing this job,” he said. “In addition to my day work, I had to work long in the night, long after my wife and family were sleeping, leaning on a laptop, reading scientific articles densely formulated one after the other.”
Burch said that although work is a huge commitment, IPCC assessments were “career” for her. She has been involved for 15 years and said that the government’s support has enabled her to attend meetings and build a career in climate research.
“Canada is warming the world’s average rate twice. We see the effects of floods and fires and all kinds of extreme weather events here,” she said.
“We want Canadian experts to bring this knowledge -based knowledge, this context and this rich experience in the IPCC.”