Introduction: The Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences

The Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences associate the country’s four disciplinary academies, which cover the natural sciences, medical sciences, humanities and social sciences as well as the engineering sciences. During the 1990s, this association of academies was complemented by the expertise of two centres of competence that support the academies’ endeavours with their specific briefs on technology assessments and dialogue between science and society. Together, the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences work on several topics of relevance to society and policy in Switzerland.

Established in the timespan between 1815 and 1981, the four academies stand within the tradition of learned societies. Among their aims is to share scientific knowledge in order to contribute to human and environmental well-being. For this purpose, they can rely on and pull together expertise from their network that comprises scholars from across all higher education institutions in Switzerland and national scientific unions that embrace all disciplines. As honest and independent knowledge brokers, the academies serve as a platform to facilitate the transfer of this collective scientific expertise to society and policy-makers.

Among the association of Swiss academies, the Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) has played and continues to play a prominent role in providing scientific advice to policy-makers. The areas in which it has gained significant experience and established itself as a respected partner in Switzerland and abroad over the years are climate change, biodiversity and genetic research. The foundations for this engagement were laid with the establishment of ProClim, the Academy’s Forum for Climate and Global Change in 1988. Initially set up with the aim to establish Swiss climate research, this forum was subsequently set the task to integrate Swiss science into international programmes and stimulate the exchange of information and dialogue with decision-makers. Based on this model, which proved to be successful in that it reflected a need, two additional forums were launched during the 1990s dealing with biodiversity issues and genetic research. The establishment of both forums was trigged by discussions and debates in wider society that mirrored concerns and uncertainty related to these matters and that gained in importance at the time. By creating the Swiss Biodiversity Forum and the Forum for Genetic Research, the Swiss Academy of Sciences thus responded to a need for information from an authoritative and independent source, as well as in a comprehensible way. The offices of the three forums just mentioned are all strategically anchored in the Swiss Academy of Sciences, thus enabling a regular exchange among them. Their modus operandi, experience and track records vary nevertheless, since the topics they deal with differ greatly from each other with regard to their societal and political assessment and resonance. Given the scope of this paper, we now focus on the work of the Academy’s Forum for Climate and Global Change (ProClim).

The Academy’s Forum for Climate and Global Change (ProClim)

The tasks of this Forum include the continuous provision to decision-makers of current knowledge regarding climate science that is of relevance for current political and societal challenges. This is done through a broad range of products that relate to parliamentary submissions, legislative processes (e.g. the CO₂ law) or political agenda setting (e.g. the Federal Council’s energy strategy 2050). In addition to print material, such as factsheets, assessment reports and position statements, this also includes parliamentary meetings with scholarly presentations, as well as stakeholder roundtables with scientists and other relevant parties. In the case of the print products, the information is processed as intelligibly as possible and appropriate for specific target audiences. The backbone of this comprehensive set of the Forum’s activities is a database that comprises scientific profiles of several thousands of scientists in Switzerland and beyond who work on climate and global change issues and who are potentially available to share their expertise, notably in serving as assessors, authors or reviewers. In the Forum’s early days, the focus of its work was on raising awareness about climate change and its implications. During the last few years, the centre of activities has shifted from this more fundamental research to attention to measures that could help slow down or stop climate change (e.g. emission reduction) or mitigate its effects (e.g. adjustment measures). As a consequence, the basis and requirements for scientific expertise also changed. While the physical sciences were centre stage at the beginning, the questions now requiring answers warrant more know-how in the fields of energy policy and social sciences, with work across disciplinary boundaries becoming even more necessary and important. This development inevitably had implications at the operational and governance level in the running of the Academy’s Forum. In particular, cooperation with the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAGW/SAHS) and their network of scientists gained in prominence. Reflecting this trend, the Chair of the ProClim Board of Trustees concurrently served as the SAGW President in the early 2010s. As a scholar in social psychology, he holds an interest in socio-psychological aspects of sustainability issues, risk perception and risk communication, as well as the application of social psychological know-how in the fields of energy, mobility, consumption and acceptance of new technologies.

We now turn to a specific case study of the academies’ science for policy work where the Forum for Climate and Global Change was in the lead. This will serve to underline the conclusions that the Swiss Academies have drawn from the provision of science to policy over the years, which will later be the focus in this paper.

Focus Climate Switzerland: Breaking down the IPCC Report to the National Level

The case of interest here is the report entitled ‘Brennpunkt Klima Schweiz. Grundlagen, Folgen und Perspektiven’, ² or, in English: ‘Spotlight on climate in Switzerland: essentials, consequences and perspectives’”. Published in November 2016, the more than 200-pages long document represents the latest and most comprehensively compiled scientific evidence on the implications of global climate change for Switzerland. The base for this report was the Fifth Assessment Report from 2014 of the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and more specifically the report ‘Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’ released by the IPCC Working Group II in April of that year, which involved several thousand peer-reviewed studies. The Fifth Assessment Report came out in time to feed into the negotiations on reducing carbon emissions at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 21) in Paris, from 30 November to 12 December 2015. In a process that lasted several years, more than 70 scientists based in Switzerland compiled the results of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, which are of relevance for Switzerland, and combined that data with the findings of scientific studies directly related to Switzerland. This work was enabled through the services of scientific staff at the Academy’s Forum for Climate and Global Change in partnership with its network of scientists, on which it could rely for the purpose. Importantly, a working group was established with scholars, whose expertise covered a wide range of disciplines, from research institutions across the country and from all language groups. Between one and three experts each initially drafted proposals for the report’s different chapters. These texts were subsequently edited by ProClim staff and then reviewed by two or three additional experts. The comments received were incorporated by the authors of the individual chapters, with the support of ProClim. The collection of chapters was then handed over to the Board of Trustees of the Academy’s Forum for Climate and Global Change, which in this case served as the editorial board, for evaluation. On this basis, ProClim staff made final linguistic amendments and informed all authors accordingly. The work of the group of 75 authors and 40 reviewers was therefore soundly anchored in the Swiss scientific community, while also enjoying recognition by the national government, in that support was received from the Federal Office for the Environment, which is part of the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications.

The report’s main message is clear: the question is not whether climate change has an impact on Switzerland, but how the effects manifest themselves locally, as well as what risks and costs arise for individual regions and industries. The main immediate challenges that climate change poses for Switzerland are, on the one hand, extremes such as heat waves, droughts or heavy rainfall, as well as other such natural hazards. On the other hand, there are creeping – partly irreversible – mutations in landscapes and ecosystems, such as glacier loss or changes in biodiversity, water quality and the effects of pests and diseases. These changes have a direct impact on society (e.g. health) and the economy (e.g. tourism) and are already causing problems. The financial costs for avoiding and minimizing damage and risks will continue to increase as climate change progresses. In addition, because it is strongly embedded internationally in many respects, Switzerland will also be affected by indirect climate change impacts at a global level, such as the consequences of migration or foreign trade. Understanding the local impact is the key to cost-effective adaptation, which must be coordinated both spatially and professionally. In order to prioritize measures, a detailed macroeconomic view of the expenses already incurred and those to be expected in the future is necessary. With this in mind, the report considers options and measures to mitigate the effects for society and the environment that are to be expected from climate change. The recommendations comprise measures to different audiences, from the individual level to the national political arena, and range from the advice to drink sufficient fluids, smart city planning to reduce travel distances, to carbon-neutral energy supply and use.

Publicity Campaign and Launch Event

The report’s main messages were widely publicized prior to the actual publication of the report on Monday, 7 November 2016. Several communication channels were mobilized for this purpose. Some ten days before the report was launched, a comprehensive media campaign was launched. This comprised sending a press release and an information dossier to local and national media and the placing of an exclusive article in the Sunday paper NZZ am Sonntag – which has a circulation of more than 110,000 readers – on the day before the report was released. In addition, video statements from recognized players in science and policy-making were put on the Academy’s website, notably from Professor Thomas Stocker, co-author of the report and Co-Chair of Working Group I of the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, and from Kathy Riklin, a well-known Member of Parliament.

The launch of the report was accompanied by a media conference and a scientific symposium in Bern, the capital of Switzerland. The event for the press was opened in the morning with a moderated panel of five scientists, three from the German-speaking and two from the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Another 18 scientists who had contributed to the report were also present on-site to answer questions from the journalists who came to Bern from across the country. In the afternoon of the same day, a scientific symposium took place in the same venue as where the media conference had been organized, thus facilitating further exchange and discussions between the media, scientists and policy-making circles. Following the symposium’s opening by Thomas Stocker, who is also a professor of Climate and Environmental Physics at the University of Bern, the four parts of the report were presented in German and in French. Thereafter, four parallel and bilingual workshop sessions allowed discussion among the participants. The day ended with a film on the development of the report and the distribution of the report to all participants.

Uptake by the Media and in Policy-making Circles

At the time of publication, the report generated considerable interest and reflection on television, in the print media and on radio in all parts of Switzerland, with scientists who had contributed to the report often serving as interview partners. The publication also triggered a contribution in the science programme nano on the European TV channel 3sat. ³ A year later, on 29 November 2017, all public TV channels in German-, French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland jointly devoted an entire evening to the topic of climate change, with the programme entitled ‘3 degrees Celsius +’. ⁴ Of relevance here is that several scientists from the report were interviewed and staff from the Academy’s Forum for Climate and Global Change were consulted prior to the production and were providing scientific advice throughout the project.

On the political front, the publication was cited by a Member of Parliament in his question to the Federal Council as to the conclusions he was drawing from the findings that the effects of climate change would be more severe in Switzerland than elsewhere. In its response on 5 December 2016, the Federal Council argued that the report was ‘a valuable basis for the further development of national climate policy’. More specifically, the Federal Council pledged to take into consideration the report when determining measures to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2020 and in formulating its dispatch regarding the total revision of the CO₂ legislation. In March and June 2017, the academy’s report featured prominently in the parliamentary deliberations regarding the ratification of the Agreement adopted at the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference mentioned above. Without wanting to exaggerate its importance, it can probably be said that the climate report helped tip the balance in favour of a ratification: with almost 62% yes votes in the National Council and almost 85% in the Council of States, both chambers mandated the Federal Council to ratify the Paris Climate Agreement.

Insights from 30 Years of Science Policy Advice

The production and dissemination of the academy’s climate report and its feeding into policy-making, as described above, represent a specific case study, but it reflects a practice in the academy’s work that benefits from 30 years of experience in the areas of climate change, biodiversity and genetic research, in particular. The following key insights therefore mirror this track record.