It’s rare that an UN agency rebukes another, but that is what occured in effect last month.
The InterAcademy Council issued a report on August 30 on the activities of the IPCC – the International Panel of Climate Change. The IPCC, set up by the World Meteorological Organization and the UN Environment Programme in 1988 and has 194 nations as members. It shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore. The IAC is a blue-ribbon panel of scientists from several nations set up to review the alleged errors in climate change data and conclusions found in the IPCC report and in the infamous East Anglia emails.
Among the findings are:
- Make sure both controversial items are reflected as such and ensure that all viewpoints are considered.
- Avoid using comparisons that can mislead the public.
- Avoid or clarify the use of non-peer reviewed material.
Errors were admitted by the IAC in the most recent IPCC report (chapter 1, page 1):
The scrutiny reached a pinnacle in early 2010 when errors, including a highly publicized mistake in the melting rate of
Himalayan glaciers, were discovered in the Fourth Assessment Report. The revelation of errors came on the heels of another highly publicized controversy in which the unauthorized release of email exchanges between prominent climate scientists at the University of East Anglia and elsewhere, many of whom had contributed to IPCC assessments, purported to show attempts to misrepresent some climate data (e.g., Oxburgh et al., 2010). Although many scientists noted that neither the leaked emails nor the IPCC errors undermined the principal scientific findingsregarding human contributions to climate change (Gleick et al., 2010), public opinion polls in the United States and United Kingdom showed that public confidence in climate science has waned (e.g., BBC, 2010; Jasanoff, 2010; Jowit, 2010).
None the less, the IAC report raises questions about the trustworthiness of future climate change reports from the IPCC. Perhaps the best position the US government should take but probably will not until there is a change in administration (is it 2012 yet?) is to be a climate skeptic and resist global attempts to take authority over nations or to push nations to do so.
Article written by: Elwood "Sandy" Sanders
About Elwood Sanders
Elwood "Sandy" Sanders is a Hanover attorney who is an Appellate Procedure Consultant for Lantagne Legal Printing and has written ten scholarly legal articles. Sandy was also Virginia's first Appellate Defender and also helped bring curling in VA! (None of these titles imply any endorsement of Sanders’ views)
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