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More on Why Politics and IPCC Matters

The following is a statement on climate change from earlier this week of Dick Taverne,, a Liberal Democrat in the U.K. Parliament House of Lords. The statement provides more evidence why it is important for the IPCC to ruthlessly protect its position as an "honest broker" on climate policy.

Lord Taverne expresses concerns about the IPCC being "sexed up" and says, "There is a sort of political taboo about the [climate] issue. If you express doubts, you must be in the pay of the oil industry or a Bush supporter. There is a slight whiff of eco-McCarthyism about."

Some might respond to Lord Taverne with a barrage of science and contextual emendations to the examples that he cites. This in my view would be a mistake. Lord Taverne already expresses, "I support measures to curb emissions of carbon dioxide." The more effective response in my view would be for the IPCC to view Lord Taverne's statement as evidence of the effects of the politicization of climate science on those who are the desired audience for the science, and to take those steps necessary to protect its role as an honest broker on climate policy. Looking to the structure of its first assessment report would be a good place to start.

Here is Lord Taverne's complete statement.

"My Lords, I have no very clear view about climate change. Indeed, I am somewhat worried that many people seem to be so sure. The issue is one of great complexity. There are so many factors that interact and have to be judged over such a long timescale that it makes predictions hazardous. About 75 per cent of experts-most, although not all, as some claim-agree that man-made greenhouse gases are a significant factor in global warning and everyone agrees that global warming is taking place. I feel that I must accept that majority view about the contribution of man-made factors, but how much warming will there be, how soon will it happen, what effect will it have and what should we do about it?

On the one hand, there are Sir David King's persuasive warnings both in his evidence to the committee and in his Zuckerman lecture; then there are reports of the melting of the glaciers-to which the noble Lord, Lord Haworth, referred in his eloquent maiden speech-and the polar ice, the recent findings of the heating of the oceans and the potential changes to the Gulf Stream. All of those suggest that we may be facing imminent catastrophe-by imminent, I mean some time in the next 50 to 100 years. Yet, let me list some doubts. The first, the hockey stick model often cited by the IPCC, which shows centuries of no rise in warming with a sudden increase as we started the massive use of fossil fuels has been effectively discredited by Hans Von Storch and others and also by Macintyre and McKitrick who demonstrated that the model was so designed that whatever data is fed into it ends up with a hockey stick curve.

Next, the IPCC's future scenarios are based on economic forecasts. These have been convincingly shown by David Henderson and Ian Castles, two eminent economists, to be flawed. It is likely that they exaggerate future emissions of greenhouse gases. The cavalier dismissal of this careful critique by the panel's president shows him to be a partisan advocate and not an objective chairman. He also likened Lomborg to Hitler. He does not inspire confidence.

An early draft of the IPCC's report stated cautiously that:

"Studies . . . suggest that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are a substantial contributor to the observed warming, especially over the last 30 years. However, the accuracy of these estimates continues to be limited by uncertainties in estimates of variability, natural and anthropogenic forcing, and the climate response to external forcing".

The final summary report said something slightly different-more definite:

"In the light of new evidence and taking into account remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely"-

that means, by their definition, a 66 per cent to 90 per cent chance-

"to be due to greenhouse gas concentrations".

The document seems to have been sexed up.

Recently, Dr Landsea, the Panel's leading hurricane expert, resigned in protest, because the IPCC attributed recent hurricanes to global warming. One year's events were taken as evidence, but, interestingly, barometric fluctuations in Stockholm have shown no systematic change in the frequency and severity of storms since Napoleon's time.

There is evidence that ocean levels in the Maldives are steady and have not risen significantly in the past 1,000 years. There is photographic evidence showing high-water marks in the past higher than those at present.

Next, do we know what percentage of warming is due to solar activity? Some experts say 30 per cent, some say 70 per cent to 80 per cent. What of clouds and aerosols, which can have a cooling effect?

I mention these uncertainties, not because I am a climate change denier, but because we should not be dogmatic. There is a sort of political taboo about the issue. If you express doubts, you must be in the pay of the oil industry or a Bush supporter. There is a slight whiff of eco-McCarthyism about.

I support measures to curb emissions of carbon dioxide, of which the most important would be, first, investment in nuclear energy and then carbon sequestration. I do not see it as a mortal sin to question the Kyoto Protocol, which will reduce warming by one-fiftieth of a degree Celsius by 2050, at considerable economic cost. I doubt if its targets will be reached, and there are no sanctions if they are not. I suspect that there will be less costly and more effective ways of dealing with whatever prospects lie ahead than the Kyoto straitjacket."