(Thumbnail Image: TreeHugger)

BY PAUL ROLFE

The InterAcademy Council, or IAC, released its recommendations to improve the credibility of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC. The U.N. ordered the investigation back in March in response to errors in its 2007 climate change report.


Fox News reminds its viewers of what became known as “Climategate,” after leaked emails suggested IPCC scientists were intentionally manipulating data.


Sean: “This is a graph used in the IPCC’s first and second assessment reports. It shows what scientists refer to as the medieval warm period during which temperatures were as high or higher than they are today. If true this casts doubt on the idea that humans caused global warming. Shockingly the medieval warm period was removed from this graph which became the iconic image of the panel’s 2001 report.”

Dr. Harold Shapiro, the chairman of the IAC committee that conducted the report, spoke at a news conference Monday.

“We concluded that the IPCC review process is thorough, but that stronger enforcement of existing IPCC review procedures could minimize a number of errors.” (BBC)

Reason.com, a magazine for “free minds and free markets,” calls the report “fairly damning.”

“Trying to reform the highly politicized and dysfunctional IPCC may be a fool's errand, but implementing the IAC recommendations would be a good first step.”

Suggested changes include new rules on peer-reviewed sources, creating a conflict-of-interest policy, and the formation of an executive committee. The Economist reports on another change suggested in the report.

“Perhaps most strikingly, the report can also be read as a call for [IPCC Chairman] Mr Pachauri to resign, though neither Mr. Pachauri nor [IAC Chairman] Mr. Shapiro have characterised it in quite that way.”

The panel’s credibility is important because world leaders use the IPCC’s research to validate spending billions to fight climate change. Paul Rincon from the BBC reports despite the errors in the 2007 report, the IPCC remains confident in its conclusions.

“The IPCC has admitted it made a mistake in its 2007 climate assessment in asserting that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. But officials at the UN organisation said this error did not change the broad picture of man-made climate change.”

The report will be likely be addressed by the IPCC when it gets together for a planning meeting this October. Its next climate change report is due in 2014.