Climate Hustle: Moi on the Big Screen

I’m on screen for a few seconds in a documentary film that will be shown in movie theatres across the US on May 2nd.

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read the rest here

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Paris and the Poor

Rich countries that try to meet their Paris commitments will spend huge amounts of money replacing cheap, higher-emissions energy sources with expensive, lower-emissions sources. This will harm the poor and do nothing for the climate.

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See You in September (And a Few Words About the Pope)

New material won’t be added to this blog until Autumn. You are invited to explore the six-years-worth of content already published here – as well as my two books.

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Experts Condemn the IPCC at US Hearing

Credentialed, experienced critics declare that the UN’s climate panel is politicized – and that many of its conclusions are mistaken.

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IPCC Wiki Launched - Volunteers Needed

Help annotate the new IPCC report so that it’s more user friendly – and more informative about its authors and source material.

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Bob Ward's Despicable Harassment Campaign

If someone was systematically writing to journals that had published your work, making false allegations against you, would you be concerned?

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read the rest here

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This Is Called Cheating (Part 2)

Months before authors were even selected to write an upcoming IPCC report, its chairman was telling a live audience what conclusion that report would reach.

Read the rest here.

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NoFrakkingConsensus has a Facebook page.

An Even Younger Senior Author

If climate change is the biggest challenge facing humanity, why have kids filled senior IPCC roles for the past 15 years?

Read the full post here.

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NoFrakkingConsensus now has a Facebook page.

See You in Mid-August

I'm currently on a writing retreat, working hard on my upcoming book, Decoding the Climate Bible: Almost Nothing You've Heard About the UN's Uber Report is True.

Until mid-August, therefore, this blog will be on hiatus. To those of you in the Northern hemisphere – enjoy your summer. To my friends in Australia, New Zealand, and other southerly locales, may winter treat you kindly.

Until we meet again, below are some of the submissions to the body currently examining the manner in which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conducts itself.

Keep in mind when you read these that the public has long been told that the IPCC's findings should be trusted because it is a paragon of virtue. We've been told its approach is rigorous, transparent, robust, and inclusive (see quote at bottom of p.7 of PDF). We've been told it employs a meticulous "peer-reviewed process." Indeed, according to its chairman, no one can imagine a better way of doing things since the IPCC's modus operandi is unparalleled on the planet.

Among those persons who beg to differ are:

• John Christy (scientist, USA) presentation (17-page PDF), interview here
• Marcel Crok (journalist, The Netherlands) submission
• David Henderson (economist, UK) submission, intro here
• Ross McKitrick (economist, Canada) presentation
• Roger Pielke Sr. (scientist, USA) submission
• Richard Tol (economist, Ireland) blog post about issues, submission here
• Hans von Storch (scientist, Germany) 17-page PowerPoint presentation

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See my IPCC-related blog posts in the right-hand column here.

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>> The water cannon of the climate debate
>> Climate bible gets 21 'F's on report card
>> Cross-examining the IPCC
>> The great peer-review fairy tale
>> What's left if we disregard non-peer-reviewed claims?
>> Cutoff dates, what cutoff dates?

Climate Bible's New Authors Announced

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just announced the names of 831 people who will write the next edition of the United Nations' climate bible (Assessment Report 5 or AR5). Three lists – representing each of the IPCC working groups - may be downloaded here.

(I've combined the three documents into a single 27-page PDF and uploaded it to this location: www.NoConsensus.org/AR5_authors.pdf)

The first thing to notice is that these documents reveal a great deal about what the UN considers most important. And that is definitely not the scientific credentials of the folks involved. Rather, it's what country they happen to reside in. According to the Associated Press we're also supposed to be impressed by the fact that:

…the new list of authors is more diverse compared with the last report, with almost a third coming from developing countries and a quarter being women. Over 60 percent of the scientists are working with the IPCC for the first time…

Now this is exactly the problem with United Nations' efforts. On the one hand, the public is told IPCC reports are the considered opinion of "the world's top climate experts." On the other hand, those orchestrating its next edition have spent a great deal of time worrying about nationalities and gender when selecting who gets a voice. Those two concepts are in direct conflict.

Of the more than 3,000 people who were nominated, only 831 have ended up on the final list (I haven't counted yet, but that's the total being reported). Which means the IPCC has been through a process in which credentials were examined. Which means they have CVs on file for every one of these 831 people.

If the names on this list truly represent the crème de la crème, why is the CV of every one of these people not available online and linked to from within these lists of names – so that members of the public can examine these credentials for themselves?

The Associated Press blithely labels these 831 people "scientists" but the IPCC provides no info to support such a claim. Moreover, it takes no work at all to pierce this smokescreen. I have a great deal of respect for Richard Tol, who has been named a Coordinating Lead Author (see page 4 of the Working Group 2 list), but he is an economist – not a scientist in the normal sense of the word. The Associated Press has, therefore, already begun misinforming the public about who will be writing the IPCC's next report.

It's also worth noting that there's no common template here. Each working group has done its own thing in terms of assembling its list of names. Working Group 2 provides bonus material, relatively speaking, in that it indicates the institution with which the person is associated. Why haven't the other two working groups done this, also?

The time is long past when we, the public, are prepared to take the IPCC's word for anything. Well before the AR5 report is finalized we have a right to know a great deal more about the credentials of these authors.

The IPCC can provide this information by making authors' CVs publicly available, or the online community can begin assembling such information ourselves.

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h/t Tom Nelson

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>> Cross-examining the IPCC
>> Climate bible gets 21 'F's on report card
>> The great peer-review fairy tale
>> Sudan fights climate change for the IPCC

A Seasoned Veteran's View of the IPCC

Economist Richard Tol has prepared a statement for a committee of the Dutch parliament examining climate-related controversies this week. I discovered it on the Dutch website Climategate.nl and Tol has kindly provided an English translation.

AR2 = the IPCC's Second Assessment Report, published in 1995
AR3 = the Third Assessment Report, published in 2001
AR4 = the Fourth Assessment Report, published in 2007
AR5 = the upcoming IPCC report, expected in 2013 or so
each IPCC report is comprised of 3 smaller reports, produced by
Working Groups 1, 2, and 3

Having participated in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since the early 1990s, Tol is more informed than most of us with respect to the IPCC's strengths, shortcomings, and history. The following is a slightly edited version of his statement. (bold added by me)

1. As far as I know, the climate is really changing and for the last 150 years this has been primarily caused by humans. My own research shows that climate change is a problem that needs to be solved. There is convincing evidence that climate change is not the biggest problem of humankind. It is probably not the main environmental problem either. There are strong indications that politically feasible climate policy is expensive.
2. I was a lead author of two chapters in AR2's Working Group 3 report (1995), convening lead author in the Special Report on Regional Impacts published in 2001 (Working Group 2), contributing author of one chapter in AR3's Working Group 1 report (2001), lead author of one chapter in AR3's Working Group 2 report (2001), and contributing author of one chapter in AR4's Working Group 2 report (2007).
3. Over the years, the IPCC has changed from a scientific institution that tries to be policy relevant to a political institution that pretends to be scientific. I regret that. There are already more than enough climate activists, while there are too few solid and neutral bodies that make down-to-earth and well-founded statements about climate change and climate policy.
4. The most important problem of the IPCC is the nomination and selection of authors and bureau members. This is not based on academic quality (as it should be) but rather on political colour. The IPCC member states are represented by their environment departments. This responsibility should be transferred to their research departments or their academies.
5. The nominations for AR5 have been made already. The selection process should be suspended until transparency is guaranteed. If needed, the IPCC should request additional nominations.
6. Working Groups 2 and 3 of the AR4 violated all IPCC procedures. The conclusions are partly scientifically unfounded, and even partly copied from the environmental movement. The AR4 was substantially changed after the final review, also in parts that had already been accepted by the referees. Valid comments were ignored.
7. As a result, AR4 contains crude errors, only some of which are public knowledge. These errors can be found in the chapters, the technical summaries, the summaries for policy makers, and the synthesis report. The errors are not random. Working Group 2 systematically portrays climate change as a bigger problem than is scientifically acceptable. Working Group 3 systematically portrays climate policy as easier and cheaper than can be responsibly concluded based on academic research.
8. Another problem is that the executive and supervisory powers are not separated in the IPCC. The Chair of the IPCC and its Working Groups should leave the IPCC Bureau, and the Bureau should adopt a supervisory role under a strong and independent chairperson.
9. The reputation of climate research has been severely damaged by the IPCC. The IPCC should therefore be drastically and publicly reformed.
10. Climate change is a complex problem. The solution requires global cooperation over a long time. This is hard enough if all parties have access to the same, independent, scientifically sound information. The IPCC has played that role in the past. It has abused the trust placed in it. A reformed IPCC should resume that role.

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>> Climate bible gets 21 'F's on report card
>> The water cannon of the climate debate
>> IPCC reliance on grey literature 30 times greater than UK threshold
>> The great peer-review fairy tale

What's Left if We Disregard Non-Peer-Reviewed Claims?

[click image to enlarge - original image here]

Does it matter that 1 in 3 sources cited by the climate bible aren't peer-reviewed? Yes it does. Because once you strike out all the statements that don't rest on peer-reviewed research there sometimes isn't much left.

Economist Richard Tol blogged about a particular section of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in early March. When I took a look for myself, I discovered seven studies in total being used to support the IPCC's point-of-view on this page of the report.

That sounds like a reasonable basis for drawing conclusions. But checking the full entry for each of these studies in the list of references provided for that chapter reveals that only one out of seven is a peer-reviewed document.

• Bollen et al. (2004) was produced by an agency of the Dutch government
• Russ, Ciscar, and Szabo (2005) was published by the European Commission
• EEA (2006) is a European Union report
• the Stern Review (2006) was produced by the UK government
• Anderson (2006) was published by the Imperial College of London
• Barker et al. (2006a) is a working paper from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research

Only Den Elzen et al. (2005) experienced the peer-review process prior to its publication in the academic journal Energy Policy.

So if we subtract all the verbiage associated with those six non-peer-reviewed papers how much remains? You can get a better look at the image above by clicking to make it larger.

Altogether, the four paragraphs on the page amount to 593 words. But only 98 of those words - 17 percent - are backed up by peer-reviewed research. And remember, according to the IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, all other research deserves to be thrown into the dustbin (see the end of the linked article).

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>> Climate bible gets 21 'F's on report card
>> The water cannon of the climate debate
>> Earth Hour 2010
>> Global disaster is so 1976

Does the IPCC Prefer Grey Literature to Peer-Reviewed?

Economist Richard Tol has written a series of guest posts over at Roger Pielke Jr.’s blog outlining his concerns regarding the Working Group 3 portion of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

Many of these concerns involve the use of non-peer-reviewed literature to neutralize peer-reviewed research findings the IPCC writers apparently preferred to disregard.

Today Tol sums up his thoughts and findings. Read his post here.

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>> Almost half non-peer-reviewed
>> The great peer-review fairy tale
>> The citizen auditors list

Almost Half Non-Peer-Reviewed

Despite protests from expert reviewers, 42% of the documents cited in one chapter of the climate bible are grey literature rather than peer-reviewed.

Economist Richard Tol has been taking another look at everyone's favourite mega-document, the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. In guest posts on blogs here and here, he argues that while one section of the report (produced by Working Group 2) "appears to have systematically overstated the negative impacts of climate change," another section (written by Working Group 3) appears to have systematically understated the costs to society associated with emissions reduction.

Click image for larger version. From p. 7 of a Dec. 2009 document issued
by the US Environmental Protection Agency (39-page PDF here)

At this juncture it's worth remembering that the IPCC's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, has repeatedly claimed that the IPCC relies solely on peer-reviewed material to make its case. By now we know this isn't remotely true. Tol highlights passages in Chapter 11 of the Working Group 3 report that further demonstrate this.

On this page, the IPCC discusses emissions reduction studies. Tol points out that although the third paragraph cites three documents – Stern (2006), Anderson (2006) and Barker (2006a) – not one of them has been peer-reviewed. Indeed, of the seven studies mentioned in total on this page only one was published in a peer-reviewed journal. (All reference material for that chapter is listed here.)

Tol further notes that on another page, devoted to the rather important question of what effect reducing emissions might have on employment (in the US climate change policies are currently being sold to be public as job creation plans), a total of six "studies are cited to support the notion that emission reduction creates jobs. Only one of the six is peer-reviewed."

If this seems rather sloppy, Tol says it gets worse. The academic literature in this area, he says, suggests that the relationship between emissions reduction and job creation is a weak one, and that job growth only occurs in certain circumstances – namely when government policies are "smart and well-designed." If "emission permits are given away for free – as is common," he points out, "no positive impact on employment" is achieved. The IPCC report mentions none of this, however.

Tol doesn't talk about it in these blog posts, but he was an IPCC expert reviewer for this chapter. After reading the first draft, he raised a number of concerns. Below are some choice remarks appearing on pages 2-3 of the 65-page PDF of reviewer comments available here:

In a number of instances, authors mainly quote their own work. This is unworthy. In a number of instances, authors mainly quote other IPCC material. This is incestuous. The quoting of IPCC material is most pronounced in the scenario discussion, which can be summarised as "We, the IPCC, declare that all previous IPCC work is great." This is silly.

…In many places, the authors are out of their depth; the selection of papers is haphazard, the assessment superficial. I also found too many references that are simply wrong; the authors cannot have read these papers. For a supposedly expert panel, this is very serious.

…In a number of instances, the draft material reads like a political manifesto rather than a scientific document. In other instances, the authors have tried to hide their political message in pseudo-scientific language. For a supposedly independent panel, this is very serious.

…Part of the literature review is haphazard; it seems as if the authors have not systematically searched the literature, but simple [sic] quote a few papers that happened to lie around. Another part of the literature review is severely biased; the authors quote their own work, and that of their friends, but systematically ignore the work of many authors. This is particularly true in the presentation of model results; results are shown for a subset of models only…

Tol complains repeatedly elsewhere in the reviewer comments. In one instance he says that "much of the material is based on papers that have not been peer-reviewed." In response, one of the chapter's authors acknowledges this to be true:

There is much material that is grey literature in the chapter. This is generally in the form of research reports to governments (e.g. US Congressional papers, such as the Lasky review)…Specific grey literature will be reviewed by Chapter 11 authors and made accessible following IPCC procedures. [bold added]

Annoyed that a European Union document is cited by the IPCC as proof of a particular point, Tol protests:

EU communications are not peer-reviewed. On the contrary, the Commission is known for manipulating research and hiring manipulable researchers. [sic]

Two responses appear on page 36 of the PDF. The first, in a normal-coloured font (after two initials that apparently identify the writer), rather incoherently says: "We will try." An unidentified person, using red-coloured font and underscoring, then adds:

(not an answer! The point by Tol is perhaps a brutal statement but needs consideration because it is true in some way. Some people at some directorates prefer ‘willing’ consultants above ‘independent’ analysis, and IPCC should be cautious in accepting this grey literature! [bold added, closing parenthesis missing in the original]

There is no guarantee, of course, that research papers published in peer-reviewed journals are correct. (As climatologist Phil Jones recently testified, no peer reviewers even asked to see his raw data.) Conversely, just because a study hasn't been peer-reviewed doesn't mean it's wrong. But if peer-reviewed literature exists and the IPCC chooses instead to cite non-peer-reviewed sources produced by potentially politically-motivated government bodies, surely that's a problem.

Tol wasn't the only person expressing these concerns during those early days (the second draft and a second round of reviewer comments were still to come). On page four of this PDF, Mohammed Alfehaid observes:

Chapter 11 is one of the most important chapters as it is supposed to be the crux of [Working Group 3] where cross sectoral mitigation should have been adequately addressed. Only positive potential views are represented while the costs and adverse effects are mostly neglected…There is not adequate references, reference mostly chosen on a personal preference rather on scientific finding and unbiaseness. [sic]

The chapter authors' response includes the following:

The team will seek to ensure that the references are balanced and adequate in that all are peerreviewed, or otherwise acceptable to the team. [sic]

Another reviewer, Bert Metz, asked: "Why is only one EU study discussed here. There must be many more similar studies…" Another, Jim Ragland, commented: "This section…presents a one-sided review of the literature which ignores or distorts the views of researchers who have alternative views on the subject."

Given that so much concern was expressed about the quality of the sources being cited one would think the ratio of peer-reviewed to grey literature citations would be high in the final product.

But an examination of all the references ultimately cited shows something rather different. Tol and others may have kicked and screamed, metaphorically speaking, about the lack of peer-reviewed sources. They may have done so since the earliest opportunity afforded to them by the IPCC process. The authors of Chapter 11 may have acknowledged these concerns. But because it's the authors themselves who ultimately decide what gets included and what gets left out, little progress seems to have been made.

I counted the references cited in the final, published version of Chapter 11 and got a tally of 330. Of those, fully 139 – or 42 percent – were non-peer-reviewed grey literature.

This is worth repeating: despite vigorous protests from its own expert reviewers, in this chapter only 58% of the documents cited by the IPCC were peer-reviewed.

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>> Let there be no more scientific consensuses
>> The battle for the soul of science
>> More dodgy citations in the Nobel-winning climate report
>> Greenpeace and the Nobel-winning climate report
>> Yes Virginia, the climate bible relies on newspaper clippings