Keeping Governments Honest on Data
The Role of Intergovernmental Institutions in Countering Data Deniers
Written by Jonathan Glennie
2019 was the hottest year on record, and the most memorable images of the year may be of the Amazon forest ablaze in the middle of the year (along with the unprecedented wildfires devastating Australia towards the end of it). If there were ever any remaining doubts about the urgent reality of climate change, 2019 ended them.
Or so you would have thought. As the Amazon burned, parts of the Brazilian government were heavily briefing that the fires were nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly not a consequence of the policies of the current government. While all governments tell mistruths, the Brazilian government took it a step further, firing the director of the country’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) for not toeing the line.
It was reminiscent of the chill sent through the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by the Trump administration, with a range of employees describing how they were being pressured to hide scientific evidence inconvenient to the government. One whistle-blower noted, “Scientists are really irrelevant at the EPA now; their input isn’t requested.”
These are just two examples of the dangerous steps governments have recently taken to suppress the facts when they don’t align with their preferred policies. Around the world scientists and analysts are feeling the pressure, with populist politicians denouncing experts as elitist and undermining their credentials.
No surprises
We shouldn’t be surprised that politicians of all stripes misuse and abuse data. They have done so throughout history (remember that Disraeli quote?).
Even relatively well-behaved politicians can be tempted to cling to data that helps them win elections and enact their favoured policies, while forgetting to acknowledge data that might be less supportive of their plans. Meanwhile more heinous politicians hardly even recognise what counts as data, accentuating their disconcerting relationship with scientific standards of evidence.
Defence strategies
Fortunately, most countries have long-established strategies to respond to equally long-standing evidence-obfuscation practices: independent organisations whose main purpose is to produce data that is professionally collected and managed, and whose trustworthiness is of a standard significantly higher than any particular government.
These QUANGOs – which include National Statistics Offices – are often supported by the government financially, but held at arms-length to maintain independence and prevent political manipulation. Most of the public knows that politicians’ claims need to be treated with a pinch of salt, but they expect the analysis of these independent bodies to be solid and unbiased.
So what happens when governments start to undermine these organisations? With much of formal media, another supposed bastion of independent information, now deeply mistrusted and partisan, and social media a haven for fake news, where can the public go for sound data?
What about intergovernmental organisations? Can the UN play a role in keeping governments honest, or at least providing citizens with trustworthy data? What role do the data-based processes which guard the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the COP (Conference of the Parties) have to play?
Enter the SDGs and the COP
It was perhaps little discussed while they were being developed, but an inherent reliance on science and data is now one of the most important attributes of the SDG agenda and the COP meetings on climate change. Back then it would simply have been assumed that all decisions must be based first on science and then, naturally, political and economic issues would be considered. But such an assumption, so obvious only a few years ago, would no longer be taken for granted today. With such blatant disregard for data and pseudoscience now being treated seriously by some leaders, today it may not have even been possible to agree to similar documents on sustainable development and climate change.
Thankfully, they were agreed on, and we have the science behind the SDGs and the COP process set in stone. But the harsh reality is that most of the general public on whom politicians depend for their legitimacy (even to some extent in non-democracies) don’t have the time or capacity to separate fact from fiction, evidence from bluster. Building constituencies of power depends less on the accuracy of one’s claims and more on telling stories that appeal to people’s biases and instincts. Successful politicians often care more about polling data than any other kind, which can relegate those of us that do care about strong evidence to doom-mongers or, worse, creatures of patronage, called to input only when our evidence suits those in power.
Fighting back
Given the likelihood that populist regimes pushing back on facts are going to stick around, we need to step up our defence.
Greta Thunberg led one of the most inspiring recent data-based defences, repeatedly forcing data in front of politicians so that they can no longer ignore it. Noticeably, she relies heavily on internationally-agreed documents, not just on information from national QUANGOs. The fact that the evidence is internationally rubber-stamped gives it more credibility and makes it harder for politicians to shrug off.
Of course, international membership organisations are not immune to political pressure. But now more than ever, we need them to be bolder in their ambition, forging new and enhanced roles in producing and validating data and evidence.
The first step is self-evident. UN organisations, led by the Secretary-General, should explicitly emphasise in their documents and other outputs that their decisions and policies are based on strong evidence and scientific fact. This is more possible in some areas than others, but by affirming their commitment to objective analysis, the UN system will be laying down a challenge to governments around the world.
Building on this rhetoric, the second step is to enhance the role of data and evidence-based policymaking in the major UN meetings. The World Data Forum, inaugurated in 2017, is a great step forward for data, but it is separate from the main events at which many of the top leaders are present. The annual UN General Assembly in New York, along with other major summits, should begin and end with high-level data presentations, embedding the idea that decisions must be evidence-based.
And third, the UN system should boldly expose anti-science where it finds it. This may mean calling out governments and politicians, which is not something the UN finds easy to do. But there are diplomatic ways of pointing out where arguments are false or lacking in evidence.
Today, at a time of great risk and great opportunity, we need international membership organisations, predominantly at the UN, to enhance their authority, based on independent and credible analysis, so that objective facts can be restored to their rightful place at the centre of policymaking. As the great British journalist C.P. Scott said almost a century ago, “Comment is free, but facts are sacred.”