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Friederike Hartz MSc

PhD Candidate

Biography

Friederike is an interdisciplinary researcher studying the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), its role and responsibilities in climate science and policy. Her main research interests lie in interactions at the science-policy interface. She has particular expertise in Loss & Damage (L&D) from climate change.

Career

  • 2020-Present: PhD in Geography, University of Cambridge, funded by OOC AHRC DTP and Pembroke College
  • 2019-Present: Research Assistant, ERC-funded project “The Politics of Climate Change Loss & Damage”, University College London (UCL)
  • 2014-2019: Office Assistant, German Parliament (Deutscher Bundestag)
  • 2018: Intern, Loss & Damage Workstream, United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat

Qualifications

  • MSc in Environmental Sustainability (with Distinction), University of Edinburgh, 2019-2020
    • Thesis: “Representation of Science and Consensus-Building on the Adverse Impacts of Climate Change – The IPCC and Loss & Damage from Climate Change
  • MSc in International Relations (with Distinction), London School of Economics and Political Science (Part of Dual Degree Programme in International Affairs), 2018-2019
    • Thesis: “Securitization and Climate Change at the Global Level – Successes, Failures and Fault Lines
  • MA in International Security with a specialisation in Diplomacy (with Cum Laude), Sciences Po Paris (Part of Dual Degree Programme in International Affairs), 2017-2019
  • BA in Political Science (with Honours), Freie Universität Berlin, 2014-2017

For more information, please visit my personal website or LinkedIn.

Awards and grants

  • OOC AHRC DTP and Pembroke College, 2020-2023
  • Best Dissertation Prize in MSc Environmental Sustainability, University of Edinburgh, 2020

Research

Since 1988, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has produced authoritative global assessments on the state of climate science guided by the principle to be policy-relevant but policy-neutral and non-prescriptive. Today, the IPCC finds itself in an increasingly complex science-policy interface in which it must reconcile policy-neutral with policy-relevant assessments of the most recent climate science and potential policy solutions. This stems from the evermore pressing need to tackle climate change and “to make the future possible” through solution- and future-oriented assessment work. Drawing on burgeoning interdisciplinary research on responsibility, this project aims to further our understanding of how the IPCC operates in and adapts to this intricate web of scientific and political demands, expectations, and responsibilities. One objective of the project is to investigate notions of responsibility perceived at the individual and collective level in the IPCC. Doing so will provide new empirical and analytical insights into the versatile roles, commitments, and motivations scientific and non-scientific actors hold at the climate science-policy interface.

Publications

Articles (peer-reviewed)

  • 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

  • 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) and COP27 (Sharm el-Sheikh 2022) for Cambridge Zero. Available on the 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.

Selected conference presentations

  • ‘(Klima-)Wissen verantworten: Verantwortungsgefühle und -gefüge im Weltklimarat’, Deutscher Kongress für Geographie (German Geography Congress). Frankfurt am Main, September 2023.
  • ‘Was geht durch Klimawandel verloren? Phänomenologische Perspektiven auf Loss & Damage’, Deutscher Kongress für Geographie (German Geography Congress). Frankfurt am Main, September 2023.
  • ‘The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Orthographies of Loss and Damage’, Royal Geographical Society (RGS-IBG) Annual Conference. London, September 2023. 
  • ‘What is lost from climate change?’, 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.
  • ‘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.

Teaching

  • MPhil in Anthropocene Studies (Department of Geography, University of Cambridge)
    • Seminars on ‘Loss and damage in the Anthropocene’ (LT 2022; MT 2022; MT 2023)
    • Seminar on ‘Qualitative Methods (Interviewing)’
  • MPhil in Holocene Climates and Anthropocene Studies (Department of Geography, University of Cambridge)
    • Seminar on ‘Science, responsibility and agency in a warming world”
  • Bridging Programme (Caius, Christ’s and King’s Colleges)
    • Lecture and supervision on ‘Geographies of climate change’
    • Lecture and supervision on ‘The politics of climate change knowledge’
  • Panellist for Institute of Continuing Education Undergraduate Diploma in International Relations (University of Cambridge)
    • Lecture on ‘Climate Change Diplomacy’ and climate negotiations under the UNFCCC, including a focus on the IPCC
    • Panel on ‘Heading for a carbon-neutral future’

External activities

  • Postgraduate fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) (Since 2021)
  • Certificate participant at STS Summer School at Harvard University (2021)
  • Co-convenor of AHRC-DTP Research Group “Beyond the Terrestrial: Climate Change and the Blue Humanities” (2020-2021)
  • Member of “Geographies of Knowledge” Research Group (Since 2020)
  • Acted as Reviewer for: NPJ Climate Action (verified through ORCID), Climate & Development (verified through Web of Science)

External Websites: Personal websiteGoogle ScholarORCIDAHRC; LinkedIn; Twitter