RE-ESTABLISHING PUBLIC confidence in the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a primary requirement if political progress is to be made in dealing with global warming. For without public confidence in the scientific evidence, no advance can be made in tackling the most important environmental – even existential – threat confronting humanity.
That’s why UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon commissioned the Inter Academy Council (IAC), which represents national science academies worldwide, to review the IPCC’s processes following the discovery that its most recent assessment of climate change, published in 2007, contained some unscientific findings – most notoriously, an unfounded prediction that the Himalayan glaciers would melt as early as 2035.
Climate change deniers and sceptics made hay with this error, as they did earlier with embarassing e-mails hacked by persons unknown from the University of East Anglia’s climatic research unit; much to their delight, the “Climategate” affair cast a pall over last December’s climate summit in Copenhagen and probably contributed to its inconclusive outcome. Not only did it seem that the scientists were getting it wrong; they also appeared to be “doctoring” evidence to fit the thesis of man-made global warming. Opinion polls in the US and several European countries have shown that the public is becoming increasingly sceptical about climate change.
The IAC review, chaired by Princeton University economist Prof Harold Shapiro, concluded that the IPCC had “served society well” but called for a “fundamental change” in its management structure, including the appointment of an executive director not drawn from the scientific community. His or her task would be to bring more professionalism to the collation of scientific papers generated by thousands of scientists who contribute to the work of the IPCC as well as co-ordinating peer reviews and, ultimately, publication of the fifth assessment, which is expected in 2014. The IAC review also took the view that the IPCC should avoid advocating particular policies.
It also recommended that the chair of the panel should be restricted to the term of one assessment – usually a period of seven years. Prof Shapiro said “one logical conclusion” that could be drawn was that Dr Rajenda Pachauri, the Indian scientist who has chaired the IPCC since 2002, should not continue to lead the fifth assessment. But Pachauri responded that he had no intention of resigning unless he was asked to do so by the 194 UN member states that control the IPCC. They are due to hold a plenary session next month, and it would be no surprise if he were to step down afterwards.
Meanwhile, the earth continues to heat up. Not only was June the warmest since records began, but it was followed by the second warmest July on record. Freak weather gave Russia a heatwave and brought catastrophic flooding to Pakistan and western China. While such “extreme weather events” cannot, in themselves, be taken as firm evidence of climate change, it would be folly to dismiss them as irrelevant.