I am an interdisciplinary researcher studying towards a PhD in Geography at the University of Cambridge.
My work focusses on climate science-policy interactions, questions of responsibility and loss and damage from climate change.

Keywords: climate science-policy interfaces | IPCC | responsibility | STS | loss and damage

Latest –

Latest –

Published open access

Research article in Climatic Change: “We are not droids”– IPCC participants’ senses of responsibility and affective experiences across the production, assessment, communication and enactment of climate science


(available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-024-03745-y)

ABSTRACT

The growing understanding of how and why the climate is changing has led to mounting calls on climate scientists to take on more responsibility in the context of climate science. While an increasing responsibilisation takes place in the academic literature, asking scientists to “do more”, there is limited engagement with the responsibilities that scientists already assume in practice. Drawing on novel empirical insights from 77 semi-structured interviews with participants of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), I take the increasing ‘peer-to-peer responsibilisation’ as a point of departure to contextualise such calls, asking what scientists themselves already feel and assume responsibility for at both the personal and professional level. I find that climate experts participating in the IPCC not only assume increasing responsibility across different stages of the IPCC process but also beyond. As my data analysis demonstrates, IPCC participants increasingly feel and take on responsibility not only for producing and assessing climate science but also for communicating and/or enacting it (PACE). The contribution of the article is threefold. Firstly, it makes sense of the mounting peer-to-peer responsibilisation by surfacing and contextualising how, why and with what consequences particular climate knowledge holders already assume responsibility for climate science at four key moments (PACE). Secondly, conceiving of the IPCC as a community of practice, the article provides novel insights into the work of IPCC participants and their individual experiences with the institution and its processes. Thirdly, the article adds evidence to a growing body of literature on practices of responsibility and climate emotions by focussing on participants' individual affective experiences. As the 7th Assessment Cycle gathers pace, I propose some measures the IPCC may undertake to support participants in assuming their responsibilities in the context of climate science.

My academic background

  • My doctoral research focusses on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and questions of individual and collective responsibility in a warming world. The project is ongoing since 2020 under the supervision of Prof. Mike Hulme.

  • At Edinburgh, I studied principles and values of environmental sustainability from both a social and natural science perspective. My Master’s dissertation, entitled “Representation of Science and Consensus-Building on the Adverse Impacts of Climate Change – The IPCC and Loss & Damage from Climate Change“ won the Best Dissertation Award from the School of Geosciences.

  • In the first year of my Dual Degree in International Affairs, I studied toward a MA in International Security with a specialisation in climate diplomacy at Sciences Po Paris. In my second year, I completed an MSc in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) with a dissertation on climate securitisation.

  • In my undergraduate studies I specialised in political sociology and international relations with a particular focus on German political and legal history, environmental issues and human rights.

My relevant experience

Research assistance

Between 2019 and 2024 I provided research assistance to Prof. Lisa Vanhala’s ERC-funded project “The Politics of Climate Change Loss and Damage” at University College London (UCL). My work comprises of both research and administrative tasks.

Teaching

At the University of Cambridge I have taught in various formats (seminars, lectures, masterclasses) and at different levels (bridging programme, undergraduate and postgraduate) on the topics of loss and damage in the Anthropocene, introduction to human geography, climate diplomacy and negotiations as well as qualitative research methods (interviewing).

Other experience

From 2014 to 2019 I worked as a parliamentary office assistant to a Member of the German Parliament (Deutscher Bundestag). In 2018 I interned at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat in Bonn, Germany. I have attended 3 UNFCCC Conferences of the Parties (COPs), two as part of the Cambridge delegation.

Publications

Articles (peer-reviewed)

  • Friederike Hartz (2024). “We are not droids”– IPCC participants’ senses of responsibility and affective experiences across the production, assessment, communication and enactment of climate science. Climatic Change 177, 89. DOI: 10.1007/s10584-024-03745-y

  • Asayama, Shinichiro, Kari De Pryck, Silke Beck, Béatrice Cointe, Paul N. Edwards, Hélène Guillemot, Karin M. Gustafsson, Friederike Hartz, Hannah Hughes, Bård Lahn, Olivier Leclerc, Rolf Lidskog, Jasmine E. Livingston, Irene Lorenzoni, Joanna Petrasek MacDonald, Martin Mahony, Jean Carlos Hochsprung Miguel, Marko Monteiro, Jessica O’Reilly, Warren Pearce, Arthur Petersen, Bernd Siebenhüner, Tora Skodvin, Adam Standring, Göran Sundqvist, Renzo Taddei, Bianca van Bavel, Mark Vardy, Yulia Yamineva, and Mike Hulme. 2023. ‘Three Institutional Pathways to Envision the Future of the IPCC’. Nature Climate Change. DOI: 10.1038/s41558-023-01780-8.

  • Friederike Hartz (2023). ‘From ‘Loss and Damage’ to ‘losses and damages’: Orthographies of Climate Change Loss and Damage in the IPCC’, Global Environmental Politics, 23(3): 32–51. DOI: 10.1162/glep_a_00721

  • Maximilian Gregor Hepach & Friederike Hartz. (2023). ‘What is lost from climate change? Phenomenology at the “limits to adaptation”’, Geographica Helvetica, 78(2), 211-221. DOI: 10.5194/gh-78-211-2023

  • Friederike Hartz. (2022). ‘Leaking the IPCC: a question of responsibility?’, WIREs Climate Change, e814. DOI: 10.1002/wcc.814

  • Friederike Hartz & Kari De Pryck. (2022). ‘Venues’. In Mike Hulme & Kari De Pryck (Ed.), A Critical Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 27-38. DOI: 10.1017/9781009082099.00

  • Angelica Johansson, Elisa Calliari, Noah Walker-Crawford, Friederike Hartz, Colin McQuistan & Lisa Vanhala (2022). ‘Evaluating progress on loss and damage: an assessment of the Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism under the UNFCCC’, Climate Policy. DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2022.2112935

Other publications

  • Blogpost for the Oxford University Politics Blog (OXPOL) on ‘From Periphery to Core: COP27 and the Era of Loss and Damage’ (Special Series 22/23 on ‘Politics at/from the Periphery’). Available at OxPol

  • Reported live from UNFCCC COP26 (Glasgow 2021, available here) and COP27 (Sharm el-Sheikh 2022, available here) for Cambridge Zero (Blog)

  • Interviewed for Carbon Brief explainer ‘Q&A: Should developed nations pay for ‘loss and damage’ from climate change?’ on L&D terminology and controversy. Available at Carbon Brief.

  • Lisa Vanhala, Elisa Calliari, Angelica Johannson, Monserrat Madariaga Gomez de Cuenca, Friederike Hartz & Noah Walker-Crawford (2021). ‘Reflections on the Global Governance of Climate Change Loss and Damage at COP26’, Policy Brief, CCLAD. Available at CCLAD.

Peer reviewing

  • NPJ Climate Action (verified through ORCID)

  • Climate & Development (verified through Web of Science)

  • Climatic Change (verified through ORCID)

  • The Geographic Journal (verified through ORCID)

  • International Relations (verified through ORCID)

Selected presentations

Presented papers

  • ‘(Klima-)Wissen verantworten: Verantwortungsgefühle und -gefüge im Weltklimarat’, Deutscher Kongress für Geographie (German Geography Congress) | Frankfurt am Main, September 2023.

  • ‘Was geht durch den Klimawandel verloren? Phänomenologische Perspektiven auf Loss & Damage’, Deutscher Kongress für Geographie (German Geography Congress) | Frankfurt am Main, September 2023.

  • ‘What is lost from climate change?’ with Maximilian Gregor Hepach, Tagung Neue Kulturgeographie | Halle, January 2023.

  • ‘Changing responsibilities in a warming world: Climate science and its role in activism’, SAFI (Societas Aperta Feminarum in Iuris Theoria) Third International Conference “Responsibility” | Verona/Bosco Chiesanuova, September/October 2022. See here.

  • ‘To act or not to act? Climate science, responsibility & activism in a time of urgency’, Cambridge Zero Summer Symposium | Cambridge, June 2022.

  • ‘Changing climate, changing responsibilities? Climate responsibilisation and the IPCC’, American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting | Online, February 2022.

  • ‘Policy-relevant, policy-neutral and non-prescriptive: Responsibility and the IPCC’, American Anthropological Association | Online, November 2021.

  • ‘Making the future possible? The IPCC, its role and responsibilities in climate science and policy’, STS Summer School at Harvard University | Online, August 2021.

Organised panels

  • Co-organised and co-covened a panel on “Climate Responsibility” at American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting | Online, February 2022.

Scholarships and prizes

  • Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership and Pembroke College | 2020-2023

  • Best Dissertation Prize in MSc Environmental Sustainability, University of Edinburgh | 2020

  • Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Scholarship (Undergraduate and postgraduate studies) | 2013-2019