A LEADING Irish expert on climate change has suggested that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) should no longer be under the aegis of the United Nations because of a risk of political interference.
Prof Ray Bates, adjunct professor of meteorology in UCD, has said the IPCC should come under the control of the International Council of Science, the umbrella group for academies of science, including the Royal Irish Academy in Ireland.
In a letter published in The Irish Times this morning, Prof Bates contends the credibility of the IPCC has suffered from allegations of data manipulation and suppression that arose after thousands of e-mails were leaked from the climate research unit (CRU) in the University of East Anglia.
Mr Bates said yesterday that one e-mail from Phil Jones, former head of the CRU, suggested that two peer-review papers would be suppressed because they did not accord with the unit’s own preconceived ideas.
He said that even the slightest hint of “skulduggery” in terms of the science had very serious implications for the IPCC.
The alternative he proposed was that IPCC reports should be compiled not by the UN but by the international scientific community, in a fair and transparent manner.
Professor of environmental policy at UCD, Frank Convery, agreed that some of the practices revealed by the e-mails were deplorable. “It does provide grist to the mill for opponents in the climate change debate. There is a lesson to be learned that science is science,” he said.
He agreed with his colleague that transparency was needed, but pointed out that the controversy was confined to one centre alone.
“There is a huge panoply of scientific evidence that backs man-made increases in emissions and global warming,” he said.
Oisín Coghlan, director of Friends of the Earth in Ireland, said the e-mails did raise questions about the CRU in East Anglia, and the current inquiry was needed.
He said the controversy needed to be put in context. “Even if every bit of the science that CRU used was taken out, the conclusion of the IPCC report would stay the same. It is robust enough to entirely rule out the CRU and reach its own conclusions.”
However, he would be slow to take control of the IPCC away from the United Nations because of the gravity of its findings and the fact that it has the backing of all member countries.
“The real strength of it is that because governments sign up to it, its findings have rock-solid foundations,” he said.
His view was shared by leading authority on climate change Prof John Sweeney of NUI Maynooth. Speaking on RTÉ, he said the controversy was a distraction but represented a propaganda victory for the climate denial community, which has often sought to undermine the IPCC’s credibility.
The suggestion of a role for academies was admirable, he said, but they had not made the connections of, nor succeeded in having the international profile of the IPCC. “This has been the success of the IPCC model,” he said.