Press Conference by InterAcademy Council on its Review of Intergovernmental

 

Panel on Climate Change Procedures

 

Independent experts asked to assess the processes and procedures of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report today recommending fundamental reforms to the Panel’s management structure to reduce errors and the potential for bias in its influential — but recently criticized — reviews of global climate change  patterns.

“Overall, in our judgement, IPCC’s assessment process has been a success and serves society well”, Harold Shapiro, Chair of the InterAcademy Council’s Committee to Review IPCC, told journalists at a Headquarters press briefing.  The assessments had raised public awareness of climate change and driven policy makers to consider policy options for responding. 

Those achievements, however, had been accompanied by increasingly intense debate about climate change science and the costs of proposed climate policies, he said, which, in turn, had met with greater public scrutiny.  Controversies had erupted over the perceived impartiality of the Panel towards policy and errors in its last assessment.

Joining Mr. Shapiro, who is an economist and former President of Princeton University, were Robbert Dijkgraaf, Council Co-Chair and President of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences; Roseanne Diab, Committee Vice-Chair and Executive Officer of the Academy of Science of South Africa; and Peter Williams, Committee member and Vice-President of the Royal Society in London, who were available for questions.  The Council, a network of national science academies, had been asked in March by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the IPCC Chair to review the Panel’s procedures.

Among its findings, the Committee recommended that the Panel elect a small Executive Committee to act on its behalf and that included members from outside the climate community, so that year-round decision-making could be maintained, Mr. Shapiro said.  An Executive Director also should be appointed to lead the secretariat.  That person would have more autonomy and responsibility than the current Secretary and serve alongside a part-time Chair.  Because the Executive Director would report to the Chair and speak on the Panel’s behalf, that person should be someone in whom the Chair could place high confidence.

To bring a fresh approach to each assessment, the Committee recommended that the Chair, the proposed Executive Director and the Working Group co-Chairs all be limited to a term of one assessment, Mr. Shapiro said, making it clear that such a recommendation had not been motivated by any evaluation of the Panel’s current leadership. Rather, it would help ensure that a variety of perspectives were included in the assessment process.

Moreover, a rigorous conflict of interest policy should be developed and applied to senior Panel leadership, he said, while authors, review editors and staff must be responsible for report content.  While it was beyond the Committee’s charge to review previous conflict-of-interest controversies, it did note that a lack of such a policy had troubled many stakeholders.

The Committee concluded that, while the Panel’s review process was thorough, stronger enforcement of existing review procedures could minimize errors, he said, particularly those that encouraged editors to exercise their authority to ensure that all review comments were adequately considered.

Noting that use of non-peer reviewed science or “gray literature” had been blamed for some of the errors, he said that such material — technical reports, conference proceedings or observational data — was often relevant and appropriate for inclusion in the assessment process.  However, Panel guidelines should be made more specific by noting which sources were unacceptable, and be more strictly enforced, to ensure it was adequately evaluated and flagged in the reports.  The characterization of uncertainty was also important.  In the end, the quality of results depended on the quality of leaders and engaging the expertise of a large cadre of distinguished scholars and politicians.

Taking a question on whether the report accounted for criticisms of computer models, Mr. Shapiro responded that, while the Committee had not reassessed the science, it was true that issues related to computer models had emerged. That was an ongoing problem for science.

Asked about statements that had been given a high degree of confidence, but that lacked evidence, Mr. Shapiro said such examples had come from the summaries for policy makers, which were attached to the reports.  Two types of errors had emerged in those summaries.  One type placed high confidence in something for which there had been little evidence.  Another kind of error was a statement that technically was not false, but that contained no substantive value.

Asked if the Committee had specifically examined the “Himalayan example”, Mr. Shapiro said that example was laid out in detail in the report.  That error had come from not paying enough attention to comments made by review editors.  Many editors had pointed out that the example did not “seem quite right”, but those comments had gone unaddressed.  More detail could be found on page 23 of the report.  Overall, errors dented the credibility of the assessment process. Trust was something that had to be built every year and the Committee’s recommendations would likely help in that respect.

Regarding conflict-of-interest issues, Mr. Shapiro said those types of biases should be revealed and open to all for the public to understand. When the Committee had met for the first time, all members laid out their views and biases so that allowances could be made for them in the recommendation process.  Most Governments had such processes in place, as did the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Fielding a query on whether the recommendation to limit the Panel Chair to one assessment meant that the current Chair should be replaced, Mr. Shapiro said such an organization had to constantly change its leadership.  The Committee had not focused on whether the current Chair should resign.  Nor was its recommendation motivated by, or connected to, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri or any others on the Panel.  “We did not evaluate or attempt to evaluate the quality of anyone on the Panel,” he said. 

Regarding financial conflict of interest issues and whether the Chair could have connections to the private sector, Mr. Shapiro said those were important questions; how they should be administered would have to be resolved.  Openness was a very positive thing.  The issue of just what outside commitments would be acceptable must be thought about further.  Asked if such conflicts of interest might have had some part in the errors made in the Fourth Assessment, Mr. Shapiro responded that the Committee had not been charged to investigate that issue and, thus, did not have judgement on it.

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For information media • not an official record