The world's leading organization on climate change says it is working on a strategy to better police the experts who produce its high-profile reports, to try to ensure they adhere to rigorous scientific standards. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change needs to "leave no stone unturned to come up with a set of measures so this can be ensured," Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations-sponsored organization, said.working on a strategy to try to ensure they adhere to rigorous scientific standards. Another 20 years worth of five-star dinners should do it.
Separately, the Met Office, a U.K. agency that does prominent weather and climate research, said it was proposing a new effort to improve temperature measurement.
The move by Mr. Pachauri and other IPCC leaders to step up oversight and enforcement of the panel's existing policies follows a string of revelations that have prompted criticism of the organization, which won a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for its report that year concluding that climate change is "unequivocal" and is "very likely" caused by human activity.
Right up there with Al Bore, The One for Nothing, and the dead guy, Arafat. Did Stalin get the Prize?
"We certainly don't feel comfortable with the loss of even one iota of trust," Mr. Pachauri said. "We are grappling with this issue and we'll come up with some measures."
Chief among the revelations was that the IPCC's 2007 report, which runs to about 3,000 pages, erroneously projected that Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. "That's a classic case that should have got caught," Mr. Pachauri said. "That one single instance is enough of a lesson that we do something to make sure it doesn't recur."
That means it wasn't even oversight-reviewed, let alone proofread, not to mention peer-reviewed.