UK media highlight IPCC’s lack of solid science in climate reports

The report of the Inter-Academy Council (IAC) raises serious questions as to whether the IPCC model of ‘doing science’ has a worthwhile future. And it has almost certainly curtailed the future of the Panel’s chairman, Mr Rajendra Pachauri, according to the chairman of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, Hon Barry Brill.

“Amidst growing doubts that government organisations can be relied upon to put the public interest ahead of their own political agendas, the IAC demands more transparency and fewer conflicts of interest” said Mr Brill.

“It is no surprise that, in New Zealand, the Government-funded Science Media Centre has rushed out a press release diverting attention from the profound criticisms in the report,” said Mr Brill.

“This will require a higher level of support from governments” says Professor Manning, who represents the New Zealand Government on the IPCC.

Mr Brill said the mainstream media in the UK have been more forthright in their analysis of the IAC report, as exemplified by Matt Ridley in The Times.

Ridley began: “Yesterday, after a four-month review, a committee of scientists concluded that the Nobel prizewinning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has ‘assigned high confidence to statements for which there is very little evidence’, has failed to enforce its own guidelines, has been guilty of too little transparency, has ignored critical review comments and has had no policies on conflict of interest.

“Enormous and expensive policy changes have been based on the flawed work of these scientists. Yet there is apparently to be no investigation, blame, suspension or withdrawal of papers, just a gentle bureaucratic fattening of the organisation with new full-time posts.”

Ridley notes that the IPCC previously appointed Professor Phil Jones as Coordinating Lead Author to pass judgment on his own papers as well as those of his critics. “Learning nothing, it has appointed one of Professor Jones’s closest colleagues for the next report. This is asking not to be taken seriously”.

Mr Brill noted that Ridley points out that a Lead Author can choose any source which suits his viewpoint when he wrote: “It is no great surprise that the ‘experts’ who compiled one part of the 2007 report included three from Greenpeace, two Friends of the Earth, two Climate Action Network representatives and one person each from the activist organisations WWF, Environmental Defense Fund, and David Suzuki Foundation.”

Mr Brill comments: “One of the key concerns of the IAC is the opaque method of selection of Lead Authors by governments which are already committed to certain beliefs and policies. Since the IPCC gives Lead Authors the sole right to determine content and accept or dismiss reviewers’ comments, his/her selection is usually the major determinant of outcomes. A clear example of the Lead Author problem is described in this Toronto blog:
http://nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/ipcc-author-profile-alistair-woodward

Mr Brill says that the major unanswered question is whether the IPCC will adopt the IAC recommendations for Lead Author selection in respect of the 2014 report. If it bulldozes ahead with the people recently appointed under its now-discredited system, it obviously runs a considerable risk that their outputs will lack any credibility.

Mr Brill quoted extracts from other UK mainstream papers:

Financial Times:
“Restoring public confidence in the IPCC is essential, because it is the main intermediary between scientists and politicians who have to decide on climate policies that could cost the global economy hundreds of billions of dollars..... it must never again undermine its own credibility by sloppily repeating unsubstantiated statements that exaggerate the risk of climate change.”

The Telegraph:
“The IAC also says that ‘qualitative probabilities should be used to describe the probability of well defined outcomes only when there is sufficient evidence’. In other words, it is telling the IPCC not to stray into what outside observers might regard as scaremongering and policy advocacy. The rap across the knuckles is deserved. It should have triggered the resignation of Dr Pachauri but he insists he wants to stay on to implement any necessary changes in procedure. Yet his – and the IPCC's – credibility have been tarnished by this affair. .... it becomes difficult to keep an open mindon such issues if the findings of a purportedly scientific document cannot be trusted.”

The Daily Mail:
“UN climate experts 'overstated dangers': Keep your noses out of politics, scientists told”. UN climate change experts have been accused of making 'imprecise and vague' statements and over-egging the evidence.
“A scathing report into the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change called for it to avoid politics and stick instead to predictions based on solid science.”

ENDS

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