Assessing the Effects of Participation in IPCC: Implications for Capacity Building of Scientists of Developing Nations in Adaptation and Mitigation Research

One of major limitations in getting unbiased and balanced approach towards current climate change problem is inadequate participation of scientists from developing countries in IPCC assessment process. Current shortcomings in involving an adequate number of scientists from developing countries and to propose approaches to address this issue have been addressed in this paper. Implications of the involvement to climate change adaptation and mitigation research have been discussed at length. Scientific output of scientists is an important indicator of their career growth and also significant motivator for enhancing participation in IPCC assessment process. Impact of involvement of scientists in IPCC in terms of their scientific output has been assessed. We have made a statistical analysis of the origin of experts in the past assessment reports to reflect the participation. Scientific output in the form of number of peer reviewed papers published has been obtained and statistical t-test carried out for the significant change. The paper describes the results from these analyses and proposes appropriate recommendations for participation and capacity building.