Climate Panel Faces Heat
Investigation Calls for 'Fundamental Reform' at U.N. Group on Global Warming
By JEFFREY BALL
WSJ
An independent investigation called for "fundamental reform" at the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, saying the organization's 2007 report played down uncertainty about some aspects of global warming.
The probe of the IPCC, a preeminent climate-science body that won the Nobel Peace Price three years ago, was conducted by the InterAcademy Council, a consortium of national scientific academies. Leaders of the IPCC asked the council to conduct the probe following the disclosure of a few errors in its 2007 climate-science report, which concluded, among other things, that climate change is "unequivocal" and is "very likely" caused by human activity.
The investigation comes at a precarious time for the IPCC and for advocates of tough measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. For months, critics of such steps have cited the errors in the IPCC's 2007 report as reason to question the agency's basic conclusion about climate change. As the InterAcademy Council's report notes, recent polls suggest the controversy over IPCC errors has caused public confidence in climate science to fall. Meanwhile, the recession has dimmed the enthusiasm of some politicians to push for major changes in energy production and consumption.
Some critics, in the wake of the disclosure of the errors, called for IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri to resign. But Mr. Pachauri, who has said those errors were minor, said Monday that he hopes to serve until his term ends after the publication of the panel's next major climate-science study in 2014. "I was instrumental in requesting this review, and now that we've got it, I believe my responsibility is to take it forward," he said.
(More here.)
By JEFFREY BALL
WSJ
An independent investigation called for "fundamental reform" at the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, saying the organization's 2007 report played down uncertainty about some aspects of global warming.
The probe of the IPCC, a preeminent climate-science body that won the Nobel Peace Price three years ago, was conducted by the InterAcademy Council, a consortium of national scientific academies. Leaders of the IPCC asked the council to conduct the probe following the disclosure of a few errors in its 2007 climate-science report, which concluded, among other things, that climate change is "unequivocal" and is "very likely" caused by human activity.
The investigation comes at a precarious time for the IPCC and for advocates of tough measures to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. For months, critics of such steps have cited the errors in the IPCC's 2007 report as reason to question the agency's basic conclusion about climate change. As the InterAcademy Council's report notes, recent polls suggest the controversy over IPCC errors has caused public confidence in climate science to fall. Meanwhile, the recession has dimmed the enthusiasm of some politicians to push for major changes in energy production and consumption.
Some critics, in the wake of the disclosure of the errors, called for IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri to resign. But Mr. Pachauri, who has said those errors were minor, said Monday that he hopes to serve until his term ends after the publication of the panel's next major climate-science study in 2014. "I was instrumental in requesting this review, and now that we've got it, I believe my responsibility is to take it forward," he said.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
aren't we - by virtue of a global economic slowdown which will probably last for years - doing the same thing that cap and trade or other 'climate' legislation will do? Doesn't slowed economic activity mean less 'green house gases' are being emitted, ergo no need for said 'climate change' legislation?
Or do we cling to the notion that there isn't anything that can't be legislated - even controlling the weather?
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