For more than 60 years, the International Council for Science has played a leading role in facilitating international research programmes on climate change, and of informing policymaking by providing scientific evidence. This brochure provides an overview of the history of the Council’s involvement.
Since the 1950s, the International Council for Science (ICSU) has played a pioneering role in the development of climate science at the international level, principally by generating mechanisms to orient and complement research undertaken at the national level. In recent decades, climate science has required international collaboration among researchers on an unprecedented scale, coupled with collaboration at the intergovernmental level. ICSU’s contribution has been crucial to defining the scientific issues, facilitating consensus on research priorities and convening collaborations which have underpinned the research. In parallel, ICSU has also worked tirelessly to initiate and support mechanisms for ground-breaking climate research to reach policy-makers in some cases resulting in important shifts in policy development.
This document highlights the major contributions of ICSU and its scientific community to the development of climate science, and explains how ICSU’s approach to facilitating research collaboration to inform policy development has evolved over time.
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