It's Time to Reform the IPCC. By Roger A. Pielke, Jr., YaleEnviro360, February 25, 2010. "With all [the recent] troubles facing climate science and the IPCC, some have called for the organization to be reformed or terminated, or at least for its chairman to resign. I have been a strong critic of the IPCC, not least because of its improper treatment of work that I have contributed to on weather-related disasters and climate change. However, I think the IPCC is worth sustaining, but only if it addresses the institutional factors that have led to its recent troubles and a corresponding loss of public trust in the climate science community. There are some advocates and climate scientists who ask that we ignore the recent failings of the IPCC, because admitting that there is a problem might give succor to skeptics opposed to action. I have a different view. Standing up for climate science means addressing problems, not ignoring them or politicizing them...
"The IPCC is also in desperate need of putting into place conflict-of-interest policies... The IPCC also needs improved mechanisms of accountability to its own admirable objectives... The IPCC also emphasized emissions trading over other policy options, largely endorsing the approach of the Framework Convention on Climate Change. With the Climate Convention in tatters after the Copenhagen meeting last December, we are now experiencing the consequences of the IPCC's policy myopia and deviation from neutrality, as there are essentially no alternative approaches to climate policy suggested by the IPCC report. It had placed all of its eggs in one basket. Standing up for climate science means openly supporting reform of the IPCC while underscoring its institutional importance. The climate science community has failed to meet its own high standards. If the IPCC continues to pretend that things will soon get back to normal or that it need only castigate its critics as deniers and skeptics, it will find that its credibility will continue to sink to new lows. It is time to reform the IPCC." Roger A. Pielke, Jr. is a professor in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Colorado and a fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.
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