May 27, 2026 @ 16:00 – 17:30 CET
In this final session of the spring semester, we welcomed Ahmad Elabbar (University of Cambridge) to discuss his forthcoming paper, “Varying Evidential Standards as a Matter of Justice”. The paper argues that fixed high evidential standards can unfairly disadvantage data-poor regions by concentrating epistemic power, and that considerations of justice therefore support varying evidential standards in scientific assessment for policy.
Elabbar’s starting point is that evidence is unequally distributed and asks how globally relevant institutions such as the IPCC should respond to it. Building on the argument from inductive risk (AIR), he extends the discussion beyond epistemic considerations alone and frames the issue as one of justice. The proposal is not to abandon evidential standards altogether, but vary them contextually in order to allow forms of evidence that would otherwise be excluded to count within assessment practices, while remaining transparent about their uncertainty. The paper aligns with a minority position that remains fragmented within the literature, challenging the mainstream tendency among IPCC authors to maintain fixed high evidential standards. According to this view, in cases where fundamental interests–such as basic human rights–are at stake, evidential thresholds must be contextualised for justice reasons to avoid the risk that assessments systematically favour data-rich regions over data-poor ones.
A central theme of the discussion concerned the role of the IPCC as a particularly complex and layered institution. It is difficult to track which elements of IPCC reports directly shape policy regulation and which instead circulate more broadly in the public sphere to raise awareness and motivate action. This complexity makes questions of responsibility especially challenging. The question then becomes: what role should the IPCC play? Elabbar noted that recent IPCC reports have explicitly acknowledged these evidential inequalities and have begun to explore them in their own reports. His paper pushes this further by arguing that recognition of evidential inequality alone is insufficient and that evidential standards themselves must be contextually adjusted.
The conversation also explored the relationship between reparation and recognition. Beyond material concerns such as climate finance and compensation, there remains a distinct justice issue regarding which forms of knowledge are recognised as legitimate evidence. Even in a hypothetically just world, there would still be epistemic concerns about what scientists expect to consider as data and what kinds of knowledge are excluded from the production of authoritative claims. Indeed, the distinction between data-rich and data-poor regions also reflects broader inequalities in scientific practice. Some regions may be poor in recognised data while remaining rich in knowledge. However, such knowledge is often not translated into formats accepted by dominant scientific standards, which themselves tend to be treated as unquestioned grounds for authoritative claims.
At the same time, the paper does not reject scientific reliability altogether. Given the immense scale of climate science production, some form of filtering remains necessary. The paper accepts the need for evidential hierarchies while critically examining what justice may additionally require. Elabbar’s answer is that evidential standards should be varied in a contextualised manner. Ultimately, the paper offers a fruitful example for discussing difficult issues in climate science and global assessment without collapsing into a critique of science itself. It opens space for identifying and discussing complex problems while avoiding the defensive reactions that such critiques can sometimes provoke.
The discussion also addressed the limits of theory in preventing pernicious consequences, both material and epistemic, such as “parachute science.” Here, Elabbar adopts a relatively modest stance. Institutions have responsibilities of due diligence to avoid reinforcing unjust mechanisms, but only to a reasonable extent. The world is non-ideal, and institutions such as the IPCC are highly complex; even influencing their procedures through philosophical argument is already an ambitious task. Moreover, there is a danger in tailoring theories of justice too closely to non-ideal conditions, since standards of justice may become weakened and ultimately fail to serve those most disadvantaged.
Finally, the discussion situated the argument within the broader context of science as a global project. Questions about evidential standards and implementation inevitably raise greater issues concerning who counts as a subject of justice, and whether duties of justice remain tied to nations or extend beyond them, as in the case of international institutions such as the IPCC. Elabbar stressed that different theories of justice often overlap in practice, and that justice-oriented climate research may benefit from focusing on the forms of injustice that are consistently identified and condemned.
Organisers: Sapna Kumar and Futura Venuto