Brilliant Sketches of a Little Meeting

The late, great – born in the U.K., but known as – Canadian humourist, Stephen Leacock is probably best-known for a wonderful book entitled Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town.

Over in the U.K. today, Donna Laframboise, author of The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert was one of a distinguished group of speakers addressing the topic “The Climate Change Act Reconsidered” in a “packed Committee Room” at the House of Commons. [h/t Bishop Hill]

Capturing the proceedings, for those of us who could not be there, was the inimitable cartoonist known as Josh (whom I’ve now very belatedly added to my blogroll). Herewith a shamelessly snipped excerpt from Josh’s wonderful work, which – with a nod to Leacock – I would call Brilliant Sketches of a Little Meeting:

Excerpted from Josh's Brilliant Sketches of a Little Meeting

 

Don’t miss the rest of these brilliant sketches at Cartoons by Josh.

Climategate: Of thumbnails, big pictures and timing

In the first of a two-part series related to the dervishes being whipped up in Durban, the National Post‘s Peter Foster notes:

The moral climate

Climate change is a scientific issue, not a moral issue
This is the first of two parts. Tomorrow: In a “moral” science climate, skeptics are classed as ­“crackpots.”

The 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that begins this week in Durban isn’t expected to see much progress in replacing Kyoto.

For those who believe that the Kyoto process is politically dangerous, economically destructive and based on dubious science, this is a good thing. Nevertheless, there is bound to be plenty of hand-wringing over the failure of rich countries to hand over more cash to poor ones as “compensation” for the climate catastrophe to come. This is one of the reasons why Al Gore and Archbishop Desmond Tutu maintain that climate change is a “moral issue.” The psychological roots and practical consequences of this claim have received much less attention than they deserve. [...]

Lord Andrew Turnbull, a former head of the British Civil Service, has become profoundly concerned about the corruption of climate science by moralism. “There is a strong alignment,” he told me, “between those who subscribe to anthropogenic global warming as the preponderant driver of climate change, and those whose view of the world is fundamentally anti-market and anti-capitalist. That climate change should have become part of the battle of political ideas is not surprising. What is profoundly shocking is the way large parts of the scientific community have allowed themselves to be co-opted into this movement.”

Lord Turnbull notes that the leaders of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the ­IPCC, the alleged fount of objective climate science, “have formed a tight-knit circle which seeks to portray their explanation of changing climate as the unique and correct one, while at the same time seeking to obstruct or suppress the views of those with other viewpoints.” He points out that large parts of the mainstream media “have trotted along uncritically behind the consensus.”

The recent release of a second round of hacked emails to and from the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia further confirms Lord Turnbull’s take. [emphasis added -hro]

Readers of this blog will not be surprised to learn that I cannot find anything in Lord Turnbull’s views, above, with which I might disagree. As self-condemning of the correspondents as this second “tranche” of emails is proving to be (at least in the eyes of those who have actually examined them), it is also not surprising that the handmaidens of Big Green (aka the so-called Mainstream Media) are choosing to either ignore this latest release, or to propagate the, well, unsustainable party-line that the emails have been “taken out of context” and/or that this release was deliberately timed to “disrupt” Durban.

These are the very same (and lame) excuses that were being touted two years ago: at that time, we were being given the same “out of context” nonsense as well as the trumped-up charge that somehow this was a scheme of the evil Big Oil funded “skeptics” to derail Copenhagen. As I had noted a few months ago, notwithstanding the multitude of “it’s worse than we thought and happening faster than we thought” articles churned out in the lead-up to Copenhagen, there was considerable evidence that the great expectations were not going to materialize. And they didn’t!

In the pre-Durban run-up, we have seen similar outpourings from the “it’s worse than we thought, and it’s happening faster than we thought” crowd; but this time, the expectations are – somewhat more realistically – very much on the low side.

In the intervening two years, we have seen some very poor excuses for “enquiries” conducted at both the University of East Anglia (home of major protagonist, Dr. Phil Jones, aka “Poor Phil”) and at Pennsylvania State University (home of another major protagonist, Dr. Michael Mann, aka Michael <how dare you question the validity of my hockey-stick> Mann).

There were approximately 1,000 emails released two years ago in the event that quickly came to be known as Climategate (now fondly referred to as Climategate 1.0 or CG1 for short), and approximately 5,000 emails on November 22 (now known as Climategate 2.0 or CG2 for short.) CG2 does contain a number of emails that were also found in CG1; CG2 also includes a “passphrase” protected zip file that contains considerably more data.

The tone of the explanatory notes from The Saint (as I prefer to call the leaker) is quite different:

FOI2009

We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to be kept under wraps.

We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents. Hopefully it will give some insight into the science and the people behind it.

This is a limited time offer, download now:

FOIA2011:

“Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day.”

“Every day nearly 16.000 children die from hunger and related causes.”

“One dollar can save a life” — the opposite must also be true.

“Poverty is a death sentence.”

“Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels.”

Today’s decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on hiding the decline.

This archive contains some 5.000 emails picked from keyword searches. A few remarks and redactions are marked with triple brackets.

The rest, some 220.000, are encrypted for various reasons. We are not planning to publicly release the passphrase.

We could not read every one, but tried to cover the most relevant topics

It may (or may not) be significant that the smaller of the two releases is called “FOI2009″. FOI (Freedom of Information) is typically used in the U.K.; while FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) is an acronym more commonly used in the US. The Saint has used the pseudonym “RC” (linked to a never-proven alleged “upload” of a file named “foia.zip” on the RealClimate website). And The Saint has also used the pseudonym “FOIA” when alerting the skeptic blogosphere to the releases and providing the initial links for downloading the files.

It may (or may not) be significant, that after two years the Norfolk Constabulary have been unable to point the finger at anyone who might have copied the files from the UEA server. Yet, in their most recent uninformative statement, part of their excuse for the delay includes:

The enquiry team has, however, been determined and persistent in following all relevant lines of enquiry, some of which have been international in nature. [emphasis added -hro]

As for the “international nature” of the Norfolk Constabulary’s “enquiries”, it may (or may not) be significant that Michael Mann and his supporters are investing megabucks on running litigious interference in order to prevent disclosure in accordance with the provisions of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. I wonder if the Norfolk Constabulary have anything to say about the alleged “log files” Gavin Schmidt told the NYT’s Andy Revkin circa July 6/2010 (in the only reference I’ve ever been able to find to the existence of any such log) he had sent to the “Norwich” police:

I was interviewed by Norwich police back in December and I sent them log files of the RC hack

In the same article, Revkin also reported:

I asked Schmidt whether a criminal investigation was ever conducted into the Real Climate hack. Here’s his reply:

It would have been up to us to report it, and I didn’t think it was worth it – If you recall, we were kind of busy. ;)

Setting aside the fact that this alleged hack for the purpose of uploading a file “into the enemy camp” prior to intended distribution elsewhere is devoid of credibility … Since this alleged RC “hack” occurred in the very early hours of Nov. 17, 2009 almost three days before any emails were actually released into the wild, couldn’t Schmidt have saved himself (and CRU) an awful lot of trouble by simply giving his good friend Andy a call and saying “Hey, Andy … have I got a scoop for you! Wait till I show you what those idiot contrarians have done … and I’ve got the logs to prove it. Here, let me show you.” Yet he didn’t do this – and the best he could drum-up (beginning on Nov. 20/2009) was an ever-changing story.

Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture (or, more to the point, non-picture … I’m sure the log traffic data would have made a wonderful graph!)?

What to make of all the above?! Well, in my view, CG1 could be considered a “thumbnail” in which we caught a glimpse of high profile climatologists in action. Amongst other concerns, there were hints of the utter arrogance of the protagonists and their “team members” – much of which has been displayed quite publicly (particularly by Michael Mann) in the last two years. CG2 shows us the “big picture” – and it is far from pretty. Both Jones and Mann reveal themselves to have begun a pattern of intellectual dishonesty and appalling bullying behaviours long before “global warming”, aka “climate change”, crossed the radar of many who are now much more attuned to their tactics (including yours truly).

CG2 provides much additional context for many of the more revealing emails in CG1 – and at least one from CG2 in which the writer probably depended on no one ever checking the context – as well as indications that during the various enquiries (very conveniently held behind closed doors), the protagonists and/or their defenders had been less than forthright. The general (you should pardon the expression) “consensus” in the skeptic blogosphere is that this latest release provides more evidence (as if any were needed) that the IPCC insiders were, indeed, very active in sidelining and denigrating those whose views differed from the “party line” – even if there were those in their own circles who had similar questions about their work.

Which makes one wonder if the InterAcademy Council’s continued silence (regarding the missing 180+ responses to the questionnaire on which they based their report on the IPCC’s Policies and Procedures) might be an indication that, in fact, the IPCC big picture is even worse than they would have us think (but that’s a post for another day!)

When he gave an interview to New Zealand’s Ian Wishart on Nov. 20, 2009, Jones said:

“It was a hacker. We were aware of this about three or four days ago that someone had hacked into our system and taken and copied loads of data files and emails.”

“Have you alerted police” [he was asked]

“Not yet. We were not aware of what had been taken.”

Jones says he was first tipped off to the security breach by colleagues at the website RealClimate.

“Real Climate were given information, but took it down off their site and told me they would send it across to me. They didn’t do that. I only found out it had been released five minutes ago.” [emphasis added -hro]

I’ll give Poor Phil the benefit of the doubt on this one. I suspect he really didn’t know (even though Gavin Schmidt had evidently known for about three days). But in November 2010, Nature‘s David Adam (who at that time seemed to know more about the source of the leak than the Norfolk Constabulary), reported that:

Jones and others connected to the CRU fear the hackers may be sitting on more stolen e-mails, but Jones feels confident the worst is behind him. “It really is not somewhere I would like to go through again. But having been through it once, I think I am a bit hardened to it.” [emphasis added -hro]

This would strongly suggest that (contrary to the impression that UEA attempted to convey during a recent press conference) that by November 2010, CRU/UEA had a very good idea what was contained in the files – or at least those that they could confirm came from their server(s).

Considering his responses at the recent press conference (asserting “context” with nothing to substantiate it) one would have to agree that Jones had, indeed, become “a bit hardened”. However, considering that they’ve had two full years to review the full “payload”, UEA’s Vice-Chancellor, Acton’s claim that:

The university hasn’t finished going through the 5000 e-mails, but “nothing so far leads me to believe it raises issues not raised 2 years ago,” UEA Vice-Chancellor Edward Acton said at a London press conference. “Different phrases, same issues.”

has a distinct ring of untruth to it. Although I suppose it’s possible that they’ve been too busy “redefining” all kinds of words – not the least of which is “context” – to pay much attention to the actual content.

Which brings us (almost!) to the matter of The Saint’s timing – both then and now. The blogger known as Pointman has two very well-worth reading eassays. In the first, which he wrote in December, 2010, he offers a repost of a profile of the whistleblower. The second, written a few days ago, includes his thoughts and questions regarding CG2.

I very much agree with most of Pointman’s … uh … points! With a few notable exceptions. In his profile essay, he makes the mistake of attributing to a BBC post by Paul Hudson an implication that Hudson had received CG1 sometime in October 2009. In his more recent essay, Pointman writes:

I said in the original profile that I thought FOIA started out being very innocent politically and I’d have to stick to that assessment. There’s simply no other credible explanation for trying to offer CG1 to a news organisation like the BBC that’s so chronically biased when it comes to anything to do with the environment.

However, this was an early surmise on the part of some in the skeptic blogosphere due to a misreading of Hudson’s Nov. 23/09 post:

I was forwarded the chain of e-mails on the 12th October, which are comments from some of the worlds leading climate scientists written as a direct result of my article ‘whatever happened to global warming’. The e-mails released on the internet as a result of CRU being hacked into are identical to the ones I was forwarded and read at the time and so, as far as l can see, they are authentic.

However, on Nov. 24/09, Hudson made a second post in which he was more specific:

As you may know, some of the e-mails that were released last week directly involved me and one of my previous blogs, ‘Whatever happened to global warming ?’

These took the form of complaints about its content, and I was copied in to them at the time. Complaints and criticisms of output are an every day part of life, and as such were nothing out of the ordinary. However I felt that seeing there was an ongoing debate as to the authenticity of the hacked e-mails, I was duty bound to point out that as I had read the original e-mails, then at least these were authentic, although of course I cannot vouch for the authenticity of the others. [emphasis added -hro]

Pointman’s hypothesis is that the currently encrypted files in CG2 contain the missing links (my words not his) to the high-level political connections. Although Pointman would not necessarily have known it at the time he wrote his post, a few of those would appear to have already surfaced – at least on the U.K. side of the pond. Bishop Hill has a very intriguing find with a series of emails full of, well, political intrigue. Strangely enough, CG2 also presents a much clearer picture of UEA’s Mike Hulme – whom I’ve always considered to be somewhat teflon-coated, and I’ve always wondered why the Muir Russell review made a conscious choice not to review any of his emails. But he does seem to have a number of friends in high places (including the BBC). But I digress …

Although Pointman does not mention it, my speculation is that at least some of the encrypted files will give considerable insight into the files that Mann is so desperately trying to keep hidden. Hence FOI2009 (U.K.), The Saint’s choice of nym (FOIA) and FOIA2011 (U.S.)

As for the timing, well, I’m inclined to think that The Saint had no illusions about “derailing” either Copenhagen or Durban. But he knew that all enviro-journalist hands would be on deck. Agendas for such meetings are set well in advance – there was no chance whatsoever that Climategate would have any impact on such proceedings. But I do believe that s/he recognizes that the general public is far smarter than politicians and media mavens give them credit for. And I further believe that the choice of “timing” was simply to get mentioned. Call it “stealth PR”, if you like … and more power to her/him! As journalist Fred Pearce wrote in early December 2009:

I have been speaking to a PR operator for one of the world’s leading environmental organizations. Most unusually, he didn’t want to be quoted. But his message is clear. The facts of the e-mails barely matter any more. It has always been hard to persuade the public that invisible gases could somehow warm the planet, and that they had to make sacrifices to prevent that from happening. It seemed, on the verge of Copenhagen, as if that might be about to be achieved.

But he says all that ended on Nov. 20. “The e-mails represented a seminal moment in the climate debate of the last five years, and it was a moment that broke decisively against us. I think the CRU leak is nothing less than catastrophic.”

And the view from here is that this could well turn out to be much, much worse than this un-named “PR operator” ever thought.

Carefully chosen fudge – “gold standard” science explained

There are now a few dedicated sites via which the latest batch of Climategate emails can be searched. My preference of the day is here because it is a one-stop search spot where one can find both the original (2009 released) emails and the most recent (2011 released) – as well as various source files.

Haven’t had a chance yet to do any searching of my own (gotta work to keep my cat in the style to which she’s become accustomed!), but I have been perusing the findings of others. My mind boggled at one sentence in this August 2005 E-mail from Keith Briffa [h/t Robert Thomson via Bishop Hill]:

The use of “likely”, “very likely” and my additional fudge word “unusual” are all carefully chosen where used.

The one thing I have learned over the past two years is that there seems to be a marked tendency on the part of “climate scientists” (and/or those who are so-called) to re-define certain words and/or phrases in the English language in such a way that they can only be understood (and/or interpreted) by themselves. We have seen this with “trick”, “decline”, “peer review” – and more recently, thanks to the … hmmmm … inventiveness of Kevin Trenberth, the “null hypothesis”, “sham” and “shameful”.

If Briffa is to be believed – and he’s a climate scientist, so why shouldn’t he be?! – it would seem that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s “rigorously” defined (at least in the fine-print which they can count on few ever reading) “likely”, “very likely” etc. are nothing more than “fudge” words.

Maybe it’s time for a new terminology that would more accurately reflect the unassailable (because they said so) “underlying science” that no one seems to have looked at for several years, least of all any of the so-called “enquiries” pursuant to Climategate 1, which have all dutifully pronounced it to be “solid”, “sound” etc.

So, instead of forcing a poor reader to hunt for definitions of “likely”, “very likely” and (now it would seem) “unusual” (all of which are no doubt chosen “very carefully” and would never pass muster unless there was “consensus” amongst the “writing team” – so that responsibility falls to no one), the IPCC reports would simply be liberally peppered with variously-flavoured “fudge”. Think of the possibilities: “vanilla fudge”, “chocolate fudge”, “peanut-butter fudge” and – for foggier findings – how about “marbled ‘n garbled fudge”?!

The IPCC fudge factory

IPCC: Fix it or fold it, McKitrick says

Prof. Ross McKitrick has just released, under the auspices of Global Warming Policy Foundation, what I would consider an excellent “companion” report to Donna Laframboise’s exposé of the IPCC, The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert.

Entitled What Is Wrong With The IPCC? Proposals for a Radical Reform, it is very timely, particularly in light of today’s release of a further batch of the Climategate emails.

In the Foreword, former Australian PM, John Howard notes:

Professor McKitrick’s report focuses on the reporting procedures of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The intellectual bullying, which has been a feature of the behaviour of some global warming zealots, makes this report necessary reading if there is to be an objective assessment of all of the arguments. The attempt of many to close down the debate is disgraceful, and must be resisted.

Ross McKitrick has written a well-researched and articulate critique of the IPCC’s methods. It deserves careful study, especially by those who remain in an agnostic state on this issue.

And in his Summary, McKitrick highlights the following deficiencies in the IPCC’s “gold standard” assessments:

a) An opaque process for selecting Lead Authors

b) The absence of any binding requirement for incorporating the full range of views

c) Intellectual conflicts of interest

d) Loopholes and gaps in the peer review sequence

His recommendations for reform sound just about right, to my ear. But read the whole report and judge for yourself.

McKitrick also has an Op Ed in today’s edition of the National Post, in which he notes:

Fix it or fold it

If the IPCC’s flaws can’t be corrected, we should leave

For many years, attempts to encourage debate on global warming science or policy have run into the obstacle that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued definitive statements, and therefore—the reasoning goes—the era of debate is over. The IPCC is made up of thousands of the world’s top scientists, it has one of the most rigorous and exhaustive review processes in the history of science, and the oversight by 195 member governments ensures balance, transparency and accountability. Or so we are told.

These claims about the IPCC are not true, but until relatively recently few were willing to question what they were told. Things began to change in 2009 with the leak of the Climategate emails, which prompted some observers to begin questioning their assumptions about the IPCC. Then this fall, Canadian investigative journalist Donna Laframboise released her book The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert, a superb exposé of the IPCC that shows convincingly that the IPCC has evolved into an activist organization bearing little resemblance to the picture of scientific probity painted by its promoters and activist allies.

On Monday, news emerged of another release of thousands of new Climategate emails, with early indications that some of them add to concerns about the IPCC that arose from the 2009 disclosures.

I am pleased to announce the publication of a report I have written that provides systematic detail on the procedures of the IPCC and makes the case for reforming them. My study, called What is Wrong With the IPCC? A Proposal for Radical Reform, was published by the Global Warming Policy Foundation in the U.K., and includes a foreword by the Hon. John Howard, former prime minister of Australia.

The first thing to note about this report is that it is not about science. It is about the policies, procedures and administrative structures in the IPCC. A third of the report consists simply of explanations of how the IPCC works. The more people learn such details, the more they will see that the IPCC does not come close to living up to the hype.[...]

And speaking of the National Post and the latest batch of Climategate emails, Terence Corcoran shares his views on this:

A new Climategate scandal, familiar cast of characters

In the wake of Climategate 2.0, action on the IPCC is more needed than ever
[...]
There are about 5,000 of these Climategate 2.0 emails on my hard drive, plus hundreds or maybe thousands of pages of related documents. Nobody has read these through yet, but the tone is familiar and the putdowns frequent. I spotted some repetition from the 2009 batch.

But there are a few obvious differences between 1.0 and 2.0. The new batch came with an introductory note, a “Read Me,” in which the person or persons posting the emails makes a kind of political/ideological statement. It concludes that spending trillions on global warming is a waste of resources at a time which billions of people are poor.

It says, at a time when “Over 2.5-billion people live on less than $2 a day” global warming policy dictates that “Nations must invest $37-trillion on energy technologies by 2030 to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels.” “This when 16,000 children a day die from hunger and related causes.” Decisions on climate should be based on all the information the world can get, not on “hide the decline,” a reference to the conflict over an IPCC temperature graphic that appeared to misrepresent data.

Whether these concerns are genuine or merely pieces of ideological spin to hide other motives isn’t known.

Climate scientists have their theories as to who is behind the leaks.

Michael Mann, the Penn State scientist who has been the focus of conflict over the long-range temperature records, called the new flood of emails “pathetic” and claimed the “fossil fuel industry” was behind the leak.

Since the fossil fuel industry is currently in a major boom cycle and on the brink of massive expansion around the world, it would seem to have little motivation to get into a low-level program of document leaks to discredit climate theory. Big Oil is doing just great, thanks. Who cares about global warming?

Furthermore, with climate policy already on the back burner around the world, in part due to an increasing focus on economic crises, the Durban climate conference was already expected to end in paralysis.

On the other hand, the leaks once again highlight the fact that climate science is a bit of an intellectual blood sport, especially as conducted under the auspices of the IPCC. By coincidence, today the University of Guelph’s Ross McKitrick — a leading critic of the IPCC — released a report calling on major reform of the United Nations science agency.

Says Mr. McKitrick, “If the IPCC cannot be fixed quickly, governments that are serious about making good climate policy decisions should be prepared to withdraw from it and create a new assessment body, free of the serious defects of the current model.”

In the wake of Climategate 2.0, the need for action on the IPCC is as imperative as ever.

I doubt that either McKitrick or Corcoran have been following my blogposts on these matters, but I think they’ve been reading my mind ;-)

Reforming the “non-policy-prescriptive” IPCC

There’s been a very interesting discussion (well, several, actually!) over at Dr. Judith Curry’s blog: “Public engagement on climate change“. Dr. Richard Tol, an environmental economist, is an IPCC “insider” who had expressed the view that ‘experts should only speak about the areas in which they are specialists’.

He is also one of many academics who have praised Donna Laframboise’s The Delinquent Teenager Who Was Mistaken for the World’s Top Climate Expert:

Donna Laframboise does what good journalists do. She does not parrot authority, but asks “is that so?” In this book, she shines a hard light on the rotten heart of the IPCC.

However, in one of the sub-threads, a commenter had posed some questions:

If the IPCC is as you have stated, what is to be done?
How does one reasonably differentiate between the IPCC- which is promoted as *the* word on climate change, and the climate science?

To which Tol had responded:

The IPCC will not go away. It will not be reformed from the outside. Reform from the inside is the only option.

See also http://ideas.repec.org/p/esr/wpaper/wp350.html [emphasis added -hro]

So, I followed the link, and found the September 2010 paper, which is entitled “Regulating Knowledge Monopolies: The Case of the IPCC”. The abstract reads:

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has a monopoly on the provision of climate policy advice at the international level and a strong market position in national policy advice. This may have been the intention of the founders of the IPCC. I argue that the IPCC has a natural monopoly, as a new entrant would have to invest time and effort over a longer period to perhaps match the reputation, trust, goodwill, and network of the IPCC. The IPCC is a not-for-profit organization, and it is run by nominal volunteers; it therefore cannot engage in the price-gouging that is typical of monopolies. However, the IPCC has certainly taken up tasks outside its mandate; the IPCC has been accused of haughtiness; innovation is slow; quality may have declined; and the IPCC may have used its power to hinder competitors. There are all things that monopolies tend to do, against the public interest. The IPCC would perform better if it were regulated by an independent body which audits the IPCC procedures and assesses its performance; if outside organizations would be allowed to bid for the production of reports and the provision of services under the IPCC brand; and if policy makers would encourage potential competitors to the IPCC.

My response is as follows:

Richard, I read the paper you had linked to, and while I would be the last person to ever dispute that the IPCC is a “monopoly“, I am far from convinced that “reform from the inside” is a viable option.

If the IPCC had any institutional awareness of its shortcomings (or even any genuine concern where concern might count!), we would have seen indications that the IAC’s criticisms have been understood – and its recommendations being implemented.. Instead we have seen a parade of papers paying lip service to “change” – and Pachauri peddling a somewhat softer version of the “party-line” (while insisting – in his oh-so-non-policy-prescriptive-way** – that we all need a carbon tax).

Yes, he’s walked back (via a rather circuitous route) from “all peer-reviewed” (and more recently, in no small measure, I suspect, thanks to Thomas Stocker‘s ingenuity, from an inconvenient rule pertaining thereto).

Amusingly and (I’m sure entirely) coincidentally – a mere week after the launch of Laframboise’s exposé of the IPCC – in an Oct. 20/11 interview, during which he was (inter alia) singing the praises of the IPCC’s personnel and accomplishments, the previously omnipresent phrase “world’s leading experts” was conspicuously absent! They’ve evidently been downgraded in IPCC-speak to “objective, transparent, inclusive talent“. [If you decide to follow the link to the video, be sure to note the rather distinct pause ... almost as though he's grasping for the right word ... before "talent" rolls off his tongue ;-)]

The new, improved Pachauri insists that the IPCC has been doing a “poor job” at communication. Notwithstanding his insistence, not too long ago, that “no one would even be concerned about climate change” if it wasn’t for the wonderful work of the IPCC, preceded by his July 2009:

AR5 is being taken in hand at a time when awareness on climate change issues has reached a level unanticipated in the past. Much of this change can be attributed to the findings of the AR4 which have been disseminated actively through a conscious effort by the IPCC, its partners and most importantly the media. [emphasis added -hro]

IOW, all we’re getting from this organization – in response to the identification of some very serious problems – is rampant “revisionism” and a transparently thin paint job, which some are evidently hoping will disguise the cracks in the foundation and surrounding walls!

“Reform from the inside”?! I don’t think so – certainly, at this rate, not in my lifetime!

** Question: The IPCC maintains that its assessment reports are “policy-relevant and yet policy-neutral, never policy-prescriptive”. But your paper indicates that the IPCC provides “climate policy advice”. Is this “policy advice” neutral and non-prescriptive, from your perspective … or is the IPCC still leading us astray?!

IPCC’s new, improved “virtual certainty” flavoured sausage report

In the MSM versions of the run-up to the upcoming (November 28- December 9) Durban confab (the 17th in recorded history) of the Conference of the Parties (COP 17) of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) very little ado is made of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s obeisance to the UNFCC’s agenda. In fact, while the IPCC claims that it does not do “research”, the UNFCCC appears to depend (at least to some plausibly deniable extent) on the IPCC for “research”:

Research

Background

Research on climate and issues connected with climate change is carried out nationally, regionally and internationally. Internationally, climate-related research is coordinated by a variety of international programmes and organizations; some of the major ones being the International Council for Science (ICSU), the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), the International Geosphere–Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), DIVERSITAS, as well as partnerships and networks, such as the Earth System Science Partnership. In addition, a number of regional networks promote and support climate-relevant research activities, including activities to enhance research capacity in the regions, such as the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) and the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN).

Information on national and cooperative research activities can be found in Parties’ national communications.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has a well established role in the Convention process in communicating scientific information to the Convention through its regular assessment reports and its wide range of special reports and technical papers. Although it does not carry out its own research, it plays a key role in assessing the information from worldwide climate research in peer-reviewed literature, journals, books and other sources. It also has an important function in identifying priority needs for further research activities.

Research undertaken that is relevant to climate change focuses on a wide range of topics such as earth sciences, climate processes and system, climate variability, climate modelling and prediction, including extreme events; impacts of and vulnerabilities to climate change, including adaptation to it, and climate change mitigation. It also covers a broad spectrum of sectors, society, economies and ecosystems, as well as cross-cutting and interdisciplinary research. [emphasis added -hro]

Talk about creative ambiguity, eh?! But all of the above is by way of “background” to the most recently leaked “innovation” from the sausage factory, otherwise known as the IPCC – which will be holding its own Kampala, Uganda confab November 18-19, preceded by the “First Joint Session of Working Groups I and II” (November 14 – 17), the latter of which, in turn (according to a “progress report” submitted by the “Co-Chairs of the IPCC Working Group II and Working Group I), will be preceded by a:

WGI/WGII Joint Session (Kampala, Uganda • 14-17 November 2011)

A pre-plenary preparatory meeting will be held with the [Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation] SREX CLAs on 11-13 November for the First Joint Session of Working Groups I and II that will consider the approval of the Summary for Policymakers of the SREX and acceptance of the scientific and technical assessment in the underlying chapters. [emphasis added -hro]

But according to this same “progress report”:

The Final Government Distribution was 22 August – 14 October 2011. All Focal Points and Observer Organization representatives were pre-registered and sent unique credentials immediately after the IPCC Secretariat broadcast initiated the Final Government Distribution. The distribution generated comments from 28 governments and 7 Observer Organizations. [emphasis added -hro]

Hmmm … Comments from a mere* 28 “governments” and 7 “Observer Organizations” does not inspire overwhelming confidence that there will have been sufficient oversight or due diligence prior to the issuance of this latest IPCC UNFCCC driven propaganda exercise report.

* As an aside, there may or may not be some significance to the fact “Observer Organizations” are conferred with Capital comments, while comments from “governments” are not!

The IPCC’s Kampala confab has a rather full “agenda”. Item 3 (according to the Provisional Annotated Agenda) is as follows:

3. ACCEPTANCE OF THE ACTIONS TAKEN AT THE JOINT SESSION OF WORKING GROUP I AND WORKING GROUP II ON THE SPECIAL REPORT ON MANAGING THE RISKS OF EXTREME EVENTS AND DISASTERS TO ADVANCE CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION (SREX)

Under this agenda item, the Panel will formally accept the Summary for Policymakers of the SREX. Section 4.3 of Appendix A to the Principles Governing IPCC Work: Procedures for the Preparation, Review, Acceptance, Adoption, Approval and Publication of IPCC Reports, stipulates that “For a Summary for Policymakers approved by a Working Group to be endorsed as an IPCC Report, it must be accepted at a Session of the Panel. Because the Working Group
approval process is open to all governments, Working Group approval of a Summary for Policymakers means that the Panel cannot change it. However, it is necessary for the Panel to review the Report at a Session, note any substantial disagreements, (in accordance with Principle 10 of the Principles Governing IPCC Work) and formally accept it. [emphasis added -hro]

This skin wording and “processing” is exactly the same as that which transpired earlier this year when an IPCC press release led the Guardian’s Damian Carrington and IPCC insider, Richard Klein to insist that “all 194 governments” had “approved” the SRREN Summary for Policymakers.

But they were quite mistaken, as I had noted:

[T]here were only 188 names in 91 “national delegations” who participated in the 11th Session of Working Group III at which the SPM for the SSREN was actually “approved”, i.e. “subjected to detailed, line by line discussion and agreement”. Not only is this a far cry from being “approved by government representatives from 194 nations” (as falsely “advertised” on May 9), it doesn’t even constitute 50% of the Panel’s “government membership”!

Not that either Carrington or Klein has ever acknowledged his respective error. But I digress…

The actual meat contained in content of this latest sausage report seems to be still under wraps (possibly awaiting pre-processing at the Nov. 11-13 “pre-plenary preparatory meeting”?). But you can probably get a pretty good idea of what it’s likely to look like by perusing the (April 2009) Scoping Paper. Here are a few excerpts I found to be, well, interesting:

Background: The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) concluded that climate change has begun to affect the frequency, intensity, and length of many extreme events, such as floods, droughts, storms, and extreme temperatures [...]
However, the AR4 reviewed policies and measures that were specifically identified as adaptation and not the full range of activities undertaken to reduce the risks of extreme events and disasters.

Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) acknowledged the relevance of disaster risk reduction to advance adaptation in the December 2007 Bali Action Plan, which calls for enhanced action on risk management and risk reduction strategies, including risk transfer mechanisms such as insurance, and disaster reduction strategies to lessen the impact of disasters on developing countries.
[...]
Rationale: The participants [in the scoping workshop] concluded that a Special Report is needed for the following reasons:

• The Special Report would contribute to the goals of the UNFCCC and to the work of the Nairobi Work Programme on Impacts, Vulnerability, and Adaptation to Climate Change. The Nairobi Work Programme is structured around nine areas of work, including “Climate Related Risks and Extreme Events.” The objective of this area is to promote understanding of the vulnerability to and impacts of climate change, current and future climate variability and extreme events, and the implications for sustainable development.
[...]
The proposed Special Report [...] meets the other priority guidelines: sufficient scientific literature exists; the primary audience is the UNFCCC and the target is the development of the post‐2012 agreement and adaptation plans; the scientific community is available; and the topic is specific in scope. [emphasis added -hro]

But they’ve got their “Outreach Activities” all mapped out, at least according to the Progress Report which will be reviewed (or whatever else the Panel might choose to do with it) as part of Item 10 on the IPCC’s busy agenda:

10. PROGRESS REPORTS

IPCC-XXXIV/Doc.10, IPCC-XXXIV/Doc.11; IPCC-XXXIV/Doc.12; IPCC-XXXIV/Doc.13;
IPCC-XXXIV/Doc.14; IPCC-XXXIV/Doc.15; IPCC-XXXIV/Doc.16; IPCC-XXXIV/Doc.17;
IPCC-XXXIV/Doc.18

Co-chairs of the IPCC Working Groups I, II, III as well as the TFI will be invited to present progress reports. A progress report on the activities of the TGICA will also be presented.

The IPCC Secretariat will present a progress report on the IPCC Scholarship Programme, which awarded its first round of scholarships.

In case you were wondering, IPCC-XXIV/Doc.15 is the one you want:

The action plan, for which external funding has been sought, comprises a series of six outreach events in developing countries and one in Norway; preparation of outreach materials that are thoroughly grounded in the SPM but accessible to general audiences; an SREX website that is integrated in the IPCC web environment; and training sessions for SREX authors to effectively present the SPM’s key messages.

There will be two phases to the SREX launch. Phase I will focus on the release of the SPM and will include a press briefing at IPCC XXXIV, and side events at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 17th Conference of the Parties (Durban, South Africa • 28 Nov – 9 Dec 2011). Phase II will focus on the release of the underlying chapters in February 2012. [emphasis added -hro]

Couldn’t find anything in this Progress Report that mentioned any pre-pre-processing press releases. But if this Nov. 1 report from Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald via AFP is a reliable harbinger of scary stories to come, we may be in for a battering storm of overconfidence, endorsed by “194 governments”:

Climate change linked to extreme weather

A draft UN report three years in the making concludes that man-made climate change has boosted the frequency or intensity of heat waves, wildfires, floods and cyclones and that such disasters are likely to increase in the future.

The document being discussed by the world’s Nobel-winning panel of climate scientists (sic) says the severity of the impacts vary, and some regions are more vulnerable than others.

Hundreds of scientists working under the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) will vet the phonebook-sized draft at a meeting in Kampala of the 194-nation body later this month.
[...]
AFP obtained a copy of the draft report’s 20-page Summary for Policymakers, which is subject to revision by governments before release on November 18.
[...]
The new report’s main conclusions about future trends include:

- It is “virtually certain” — 99-100% sure – that the frequency and magnitude of warm daily temperature extremes will increase over the 21st century on a global scale;
[...] [emphasis added -hro]

The “writing team” for this opus (as of mid October) can be found at http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/extremes-sr/authors/writing_team_pb.html. In keeping with the IPCC’s tradition of “transparency”, the only information we are given about each individual is her/his role, country of origin and (at least one) institutional affiliation. No indication of where anyone’s expertise might lie.

But – according to the “progress report” – in July 2011, the Co-Chairs took a remarkable leap forward by adding “great value” to this sausage report with the:

immediate introduction and implementation of a policy on disclosure of interests, together with a declaration of compliance with IPCC Principles and Procedures [...] Therefore, in July 2011, a mandatory policy was introduced for the SREX, which applies to the SREX CLAs, LAs and REs as well as to all members of the WGI and WGII Bureaux and the WGI and WGII TSUs.

And I’m “virtually certain” that this innovation guarantees an unquestionably “kosher” sausage report – at least from the IPCC’s perspective!