(How) Does Diversity Still Matter for the IPCC? Instrumental, Substantive and Co-Productive Logics of Diversity in Global Environmental Assessments
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This article investigates three key questions – (1) the extent IPCC succeeded in shaping diverse expertise, (2) ways diversity is vital to the IPCC, and (3) what purpose diversity could serve in the IPCC's global environmental knowledge generation. I consider the probe of these questions crucial to grasping the diversity levels within the IPCC. Below is my specific feedback.
General impression: The manuscript comes out as a communication paper instead of a research paper. It is too brief and lacks details in critical areas. For instance, it lacks a replicable methodological section, lacks a well-discussed result section (or a discussion on the implications of the result on IPCC operations or/and global climate knowledge generation policy/agenda. These are critical issues that would position the paper as a research article with worldwide relevance and capable of commanding a more extensive global readership. Impressions in specific areas/sections are further presented below.
Abstract. The authors could be more specific in providing readers with snippets of the paper's results in the abstract. For example, the following statement was presented as a result in the abstract: "The analysis shows that across measures of gender, regional representation, and the proportion of authors from developing countries, despite continued issues, there have been noticeable improvements in diversity in recent years. These improvements have not, however, been distributed equally when looking at the distribution of senior authors, nor is it across working groups with WGI (the 15 physical science) remaining much less diverse than WGII (impacts) and WGIII (mitigation)." This is not a result but rather an explanatory statement on the result. It merely comments on what should be the result. Give readers some quantitative/qualitative finding that the above statement explains. That would make for an ideal informative abstract – one capable of driving readers to pick interest in reading the full article.
Introduction: The introduction reads well based on the content. However, it is written on the assumption that readers know all about the IPCC. Therefore, it did not tell readers about the IPCC, its agenda, and the need for IPCC knowledge generation mission. If the authors can do this, it would help broaden the scope of the manuscript and provide orientation on the subject discussed in the later parts of the manuscript.
Methodology: The paper (despite not engaging in in-depth literature/theory around the IPCC or climate-related knowledge generation) lacks a methodological section. Why engage in analysing diversity in IPCC publications? What is unique about IPCC publications? How were the analysed publications selected – specific search criteria (e.g., search keywords and the search domains?? What was found (with evidence)? What criteria were applied to assimilate (or retain) and eliminate searched publications for analysis? What was analysed based on themes before making sense of results? On the interview part: what was the selection material for interviewees, and why? Answering these questions can allow readers to grasp the research and methods applied to ensure more substantial replicability and understanding of the data behind the results presented. The methodological issue of this paper is its greatest weakness.
Results, discussion, and conclusion: The results presented make a lot of sense. But the authors veer into why diversity matters in using their interview responses. Should we not already know what diversity matters (as the justification for the manuscript earlier in the manuscript). I sense the authors wanted to discuss why their result on diversity matter in section 3. If that is the case, then they should follow that line of argument. Further, they should discuss the implications of their results/findings, as I already stated in my "general impression" of the manuscript above. If they can do this, they can draw an informative conclusion at both theoretical and policy levels.
References: Why do we have a low count insufficient scope of references in this manuscript? The authors did a scoping literature review of IPCC publications but cited a few. It makes the work even weak as they speak of literature but do not find them "reasonable" enough to either cite them or provide a list of the analysed literature in the appendix.
Author Response
Thank you for the thoughtful and constructive comments. In light of this review we have substantially restructured the article to follow a more traditional format. We respond to your specific points as follows:
Abstract: The abstract has been significantly redrafted to include results of the analysis.
Introduction: An initial paragraph has been added to give an overview of the IPCC and it's work in knowledge production/dissemination. The introduction has also been shortened and some text moved to the literature review section.
Literature Review: A separate lit review section has been added which greatly expands the literature on diversity discussed initially. There is a new section on previous studies on diversity in the IPCC.
Methodology: A distinct methodology section has been added which gives an account of the data, methods and analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data collection.
Results and discussion: The results and discussion have been separated and the discussion expanded.
References: 12 new references have been added.
Reviewer 2 Report
Review for “(How) Does Diversity Still Matter for the IPCC?”
This is a very interesting study that discusses a very important issue in the IPCC, the diversity. The author used both demographic data and surveys to reveal changes in diversity in IPCC from AR5 to AR6 and present peoples’ viewpoints about diversity from experts who participated in the program. I think this paper is well written and valuable to the climate change community. Therefore, I recommend a minor revision. Authors need to address the below issues before it is suitable for publication in climate.
Line 97 IPCC
Line 274 IPCC
Line 349 STS was not explained.
Author Response
Thank you for reading the article and reviewing. We have made the following changes upon your suggestion:
Line 97: This paragraph now forms an earlier part of the introduction and IPPC has been corrected to IPCC.
Line 274: This has now been corrected to IPCC.
Line 349: This has been changed to 'Science and Technology Studies.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
A lot improvements have been made by the authors in the current version of the manuscript. However, I noticed some minor but serious concerns.
- Lines 249-257 says: “Results: by exploring three related issues: To what extent has the IPCC succeeded in its ambition to shape a more diverse expertise? In what ways are diversity important to the IPCC? The second section uses qualitative data from a semi-structured interview study with IPCC experts to discuss the various ways the IPCC understands and appreciates diversity. The final section draws together conclusions from the analysis of these data sets and suggests a focus on a holistic approach to diversity may be one way to transcend the binary logics of a strategic or substantive approach to diversity. It is ultimately hoped that this article prompts a constructive discussion on the issue of diversity within the IPCC and within environmental research more generally.” This is already repeated in the last part of the introduction.
- What exactly is the aim here? The paragraph gives the impression that the texts are explanation of the results (that’s not the case). It also presents guiding statements on the succeeding sections (statement referring to 2nd section and final section) is confusing as the next section after the methodology is the 4th… and… It is also important that the authors know when to use “descriptive’’ as opposed to “quantitative”. In this paragraph, I suggest removing “Results: by exploring three related issues:” and rephrasing with cognizance to my earlier comments (with no repetitions).
- Line 53-54: Please remove the website link and simply cite the source (IPCC?). The link can be included in the reference details in accordance with this journals reference format. Also remove the web-links in other parts of the manuscript and cite appropriately and reference as requested.
- Line 321 or section 5 could be re-captioned as simply “How does diversity matter?” and not “Results: Interview Data on How does diversity matter?” All parts of the post-methodology sections are part of findings/results except discussion and conclusion. So, no need for such a section caption.
- Citation/Referencing still needs to be worked on to ensure consistency with journal styles.
Author Response
The paragraph at lines 249-257 has been removed - it was incorrectly copied from the introduction and so unnecessary at this point.
The IPCC link at line 53-54 has now been removed and replaced with a reference.
The section title at line 321 has been changed to 'How Does Diversity Matter?'
References are now in the journal style.
