Could Collective Intelligence help us rethink the next COP?

Smarter Together latest newsletter, sharing 3 CI-inspired reforms for the fight against climate change.

1. Reform knowledge production: the case of the IPCC

Dubbed an "epistemological monster", the IPCC is a great example of a complex international assembly producing essential scientific knowledge that could benefit from more Collective Intelligence. Dr. Kari De Pryck in her analysis of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in The Routledge Handbook of Collective Intelligence for Democracy & Governance suggests a number of reforms, including:

• Agree on disagreements and clearly call out differing perspectives rather than seek consensus at the lowest common denominator. The COP agreement might be more helpful if it reflected the real divisions between countries: pro and anti coal, pro and anti fossil fuels, to then pave the way for more in-depth agreements. ?
• Diversify the range of inputs, by aiming for greater geographic, intergenerational, and gender balance in the authorship of global environmental assessments. This also involves including voices that are less often heard: the small states islands have shown how creativity and communication can help them be more heard on the international stage.? ?
• Broaden the range of perspectives. An example is the ingenious Climate Trace tool, an independent Greenhouse Gas emissions tracking system, using new types of satellite data and AI that helps tracking unreported emissions. COPs should be a place to learn new data, broaden perspectives, and discover new ways to sharpen scientific knowledge, not question fossil fuels’ impact on CO2 emissions…? ?
• Engage and empower civil society, citizens, and marginalized communities in the analysis and presentation of IPCC assessments.? ?
• Address the asymmetries in the way assessments are produced and negotiated between experts (between, e.g., researchers from the natural and the social sciences), experts and governments (experts have the last word only to the extent governments let them have it), and among governments (some of whom have far more resources and bargaining power than others).

Read Kari De Pryck’s full analysis of the IPCC.

2. Foster collective creativity skills among climate advocates

Johan Galtung, internationally recognized as a founding father of peace studies and practice, insisted that creativity can help us rethink international negotiations. In his words, we need to “conceptualize an alternative world, or a social context of the conflict different from what it actually is in empirical reality.”

• We recommend his Transcend approach to transform conflicting situations into opportunities for creative solutions.
• Another creative method applied to international negotiations: see how Kari De Pryck applies the approach of desirable futures to climate change mitigation efforts.

Fostering creativity skills is precisely what we recently did with a Masterclass in creativity and polarity thinking for 20 climate advocates.

• Check out our?program here and let us know if you too would like to benefit from such a Masterclass in the future.

3. Involve citizens in environmental compliance

Triggering transformative change in environment conservation efforts: this is what our founding organization Dreamocracy will be contributing to starting from January 2024 along with several members of Smarter Together’s network, including Dr. Gitte Kraghe. The project will look at citizen science initiatives by which citizens and communities act as key actors in collaborative environmental compliance assurance applied to zero pollution, biodiversity protection and deforestation prevention. Over the next 4 years, the consortium will be engaging 162 citizen science initiatives, 98 authorities and national agencies and selected LivingLabs and Fab Labs in 40 cases in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. More4Nature is a EU Horizon project.