12/21/11, "New Directions for the Intergovernmental Climate Panel," NY Times, Dot Earth, Andrew C. Revkin
"There’ve been a variety of reactions to my post criticizing Rajendra K. Pachauri, the longtime chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Spencer R. Weart, whose book “The Discovery of Global Warming” traces the century of science leading to the panel’s 2001 report, said I’m holding Pachauri to an impossible standard:
[Y]ou should acknowledge that everyone prominently involved in the IPCC has been subjected to violent personal abuse. It’s small wonder if they feel an animus toward that small subset of their critics who are so vituperative. You are asking Pachauri to be inhumanly restrained, and should admit that this is difficult. [Read the rest.]
It is absolutely difficult to restrain oneself in the face of constant assaults. If this were a stray instance of blurring the line between personal views and professional responsibilities, I’d agree with Weart (whose book I reviewed very favorably in 2003). But it’s not, as Hilary Ostrov noted in another comment, citing a 2007 statement by Pachauri (made in an interview with the journal Nature in 2007):
In an e-mail message, Kenneth Caldeira, who studies climate for the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University (and who is a participant in some of the panel’s assessments), used the post as an opportunity to examine a broader question about the panel’s role and future. Here’s his “Your Dot” contribution:I am not going to rest easy until I have articulated in every possible forum the need to bring about major structural changes in economic growth and development. That’s the real issue.
Climate change is just a part of it.
- Clearly, at the outset, the early IPCC reports played an important role showing that there was a high degree of consensus around the reality and basic science of human-induced climate change. It was important to show that, despite a few climate-science deniers, the fundamental science was well-accepted by the mainstream scientific community.
- But can anybody point to any important positive outcomes resulting from the IPCC AR4 process? [AR4 is shorthand for the panel's fourth assessment, which was published in 2007.] Is there reason to expect a greater positive impact from the IPCC AR5 process? [This is the forthcoming fifth assessment of climate science and policies, coming in 2013 and 2014]
- I am all for scientific reviews and assessments, and I think the multi-model comparisons reviewed by the IPCC have been especially useful. However, it is not clear how much additional benefit there is to having a huge bureaucratic scientific review effort under UN auspices. The multi-model comparisons have been performed under the auspices of the WCRP — The World Climate Research Program, and small nimble organizations such as the Global Carbon Project (GCP) have been instrumental on synthesizing new knowledge about CO2-emissions and the carbon cycle efficiently and with a minimum of bureaucratic overhead. (Disclaimer: I am on the board of GCP and have not shared these views with other board members.)
- Again, I think the IPCC has been extremely useful in the past, and I believe the IPCC could be extremely useful in the future. But, if the IPCC is to be extremely useful, it must re-invent itself, so that it efficiently supplies decision-makers with the most important and reliable scientific information while placing a minimum of additional burden on the scientific community.
- (As an aside, I recently resigned as a lead author of an IPCC AR5 chapter simply because I felt I had more effective ways of using the limited amount of time that I have to engage in scientific activities. My resignation was made possible because I believe that the chapter team that I was part of was on the right track and doing an excellent job without my contribution. Had I had a scientific criticism of my chapter team, you can be assured that I would have stayed involved. So, my resignation was a vote of confidence in my scientific peers, not a critique. It is just not clear to me that, at this point, working on IPCC chapters is the most effective use of my time. Also, I do want to be careful not to pre-judge IPCC AR5. It may turn out to be a far more efficient and effective vehicle for scientific communication than I now anticipate.)
- An important question is: How can the IPCC be made into a more efficient and effective vehicle for scientific communication? It would be good to have this discussion before the AR6 train leaves the station.
Here’s some related reading from my past coverage of the panel:
- Discussions of the need for change in 2007 in “Last-Minute Wrangling on Global Warming Report” (with James Kanter).
- The view from 2010: “From Inside and Out, Climate Panel is Pushed to Change.”"
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'Violent?' ed.
via Climate Depot
