In a position statement on the climate crisis, the Austrian Bioethics Commission has put forward important recommendations to policymakers, including the acceleration of overdue legislative projects such as a new climate protection law. The philosopher Konrad Paul Liessmann, in his recent commentary in the "Wiener Zeitung" of 16/17 July, raised suspicions of ideology — particularly regarding the Commission's media policy proposals. If the quality of reporting were to be measured against a "scientific consensus" on the climate crisis — which, according to Liessmann, doesn't actually exist — then "state control" of free speech would be on the cards. This polemic deserves a rebuttal.

Every natural science develops, over time, through the interplay of theory, experiment, and observation, a body of established knowledge — knowledge over which there is consensus. In climate research, groundbreaking work carried out around 50 years ago, recognised last year with the Nobel Prize in Physics, laid the foundation for just such a body of knowledge. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) plays a key role in developing this canon.

Yet despite uncertainties, current findings can still be relevant for action. For example, based on current knowledge, it cannot be ruled out that sea levels could rise by 15 metres by the year 2300 if we don't significantly reduce our emissions. There may be no consensus on this, but the information is nonetheless relevant for the Maldives or New York. At the latest at this point, it becomes clear that Liessmann's comparison with coronavirus doesn't hold up: with Covid-19, we're witnessing research in fast-forward. In climate research, a body of knowledge has developed over decades, and through the IPCC there is a fairly clear picture of where open and contested questions remain.

Read the full guest commentary by Douglas Maraun and Thomas Wolkinger here!