InterAcademy Council Report on the IPCC Released
Following controversy over the IPCC's 2007 assessment report, last March the UN and the IPCC asked the IAC to assemble a committee to review the processes and procedures of the IPCC. The 12-member committee from ten countries and headed by Harold Shapiro of Princeton University released its report on August 30. Unlike the Climategate inquiries, this one is no whitewash. Key recommendations (see Chapter 5 of the report) include:
1. Modernizing the IPCC's management structure to include an Executive Committee, a rigorous conflict of interest* policy and limiting the term of the Chair to one term only;
2. Strengthening the review process to ensure more effective responses to reviewer comments;
3. Characterizing and communicating uncertainties, particularly with regard to the level-of-understanding and likelihood scales used in the IPCC reports;
4. Developing an effective communications strategy that emphasizes transparency, rapid and thoughtful responses;
5. Increasing transparency, including explicit documentation that a range of scientific viewpoints** has been considered;
6. Clarifying use of unpublished and non-peer-reviewed sources;
7. Engaging the best regional experts;
8. Expediting approval of the Summary for Policy Makers;
9. Reducing the growing burden on the scientific community, for example, by having shorter reports focusing on key issues or significant new developments; and
10. Maintaining flexibility.
* Chapter 4 of the report deals extensively with the conflict-of-interest question, noting that no such policy exists for the IPCC and that questions were raised about its Chair's (i.e., Rajendra Pachauri's) service with some for-profit energy companies and the practice of Lead Authors reviewing their own work (p. 46.)
** Chapter 2, page 20, notes John Christy's presentation that alternative views are not always cited in a chapter if a Lead Author disagrees with them.
Morano: 'The IAC has once again revealed that the UN IPCC is merely a partisan error-riddled pressure group campaigning for their cause. Quite simply, the IPCC is the best science that politics and activists could manufacture. Skeptics worldwide should rally around the discredited UN IPCC chief Pachauri. The longer Pachauri stays, the more damage he does to the pitiful IPCC process. Viva Pachauri!'
UK Telegraph: 'Flawed science': 'UN IPCC was rightly warned not to stray into what might be seen as scaremongering and policy advocacy'
Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook: 'The IPCC report is filled with statements of '90% certainty' without even saying 90% of what or providing any basis for such statements. Yet those pronouncements of certainty were used over and over as though that had been scientifically proven somehow'
