April 11, 2008
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/an_age_of_warming_bias/
David Henderson, in a presentation to the IMF, says this kind of
re****ting on global warming is only too common:
Across the world, the treatment of these issues by environmental and
scientific journalists and commentators is overwhelmingly one-sided and
sensationalist: studies and results that are unalarming are typically
played down or disregarded, while the gaps in knowledge and the huge
uncertainties which still loom large in climate science are passed over.
This pervasive one-sidedness on the part of so many commentators and
media outlets is in itself worrying; but even more so, to my mind, is
the fact that leading figures and organisations connected with the IPCC
process, including government departments and international agencies, do
little to ensure that a more balanced picture is presented.
His full address (below), in which he shows how the IPCC processes are
set up to favor alarmism, is a terrific read.
Climate Change Issues and the Role of the IMF
David Henderson
The text that follows formed the basis for a seminar presentation at the
International Monetary Fund on 6 March 2008. It draws without specific
acknowledgements on two recent articles of mine in the journal World
Economics.
1 A risky window of op****tunity
To begin with, I would like to express my warm thanks for the invitation
to make this seminar presentation at the Fund. Not only do I feel
honoured by the invitation, but the occasion represents for me a unique
and much-valued op****tunity.
I shall use the occasion to put before you a personal view of climate
change issues, and of the role that the IMF could now play in relation
to them: my presentation is designed, unashamedly, as an exercise in
persuasion.
I shall argue that the Fund could bring to the climate change debate a
distinctive and much-needed contribution of its own: it could take the
lead in framing a new approach to the issues. The approach that I have
in mind would be broader, more balanced, and above all less presumptive.
Since some of the presumptions I have in mind seem to be lodged here in
700 19th Street, Wa****ngton DC, my proposal could well imply some
internal rethinking.
My subject is 'climate change issues', rather than 'the economics of
climate change'. True, I am an economist, not a climate scientist or a
physicist. At the time when I became involved with climate change
issues, by accident rather than design, towards the end of 2002, my
involvement was limited to some economic aspects of the debate. Since
then my interests and concerns have broadened, in ways that were neither
planned nor expected by me. They now extend to the whole spectrum of
climate change issues, and in particular to the treatment of those
issues by governments and international agencies.
Here is a summary of my main argument, in which I refer to the OECD as
well as the Fund.
Two leading international agencies, the OECD and the IMF, are now
becoming more closely involved with climate change issues, in
conjunction with treasuries and finance ministries within their member
countries. This broader official involvement opens up an op****tunity: it
could lead to a fuller and more balanced treatment of the issues. At
present, however, there is little sign that the op****tunity will be
perceived as such. In both the agencies and national capitals, it seems
to be taken for granted that 'the science' can be viewed as 'settled',
and that the established advisory process which governments have created
is objective and authoritative. This is not the right point of
departure. In relation to these issues, a new framework is needed -
less presumptive, more inclusive, more watertight professionally, and
more attuned to the huge uncertainties that remain. Besides dealing with
specifically economic aspects, where there is much to be done, work in
both agencies should be directed more broadly to establi****ng such a
framework.
Let me underline some words from that final sentence. There is indeed
much still to be done on the economics of climate change, and no doubt
it is under this heading that the Fund's main contribution will be made.
What I am now suggesting is a further extension of its concerns and
tasks.
A precedent comes to mind here. Three years ago I submitted written
evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs,
which was then preparing its re****t, published in July 2005, on The
Economics of Climate Change. In my submission I wrote:
'The Committee can do a great service to public discussion and
enlightenment, not only in this country but across the world, by
accepting and acting on a simple though admittedly contentious guiding
principle. It should treat as still open a range of issues which the
[Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and its member governments
consider as closed. (Italics as in the original text.)
I would make a similar proposal today in relation to the Fund - and, for
that matter, the OECD.
Of course, the two situations, of the Select Committee and the Fund, are
not at all the same. It presents no problem for a group of British
peers, none of them either holding or aspiring to ministerial office, to
question accepted positions that Her Majesty's Government have taken.
For an international agency, on the other hand, any such questioning of
member governments is a serious matter. As a former national and
international civil servant, I am well aware that the repositioning and
the enlarged agenda that I have in mind for the Fund are far from
riskless. As will become clear, I am suggesting that the IMF should take
positions and pursue courses of action which not one of your client
departments in member countries - that is to say, treasuries and finance
ministries across the world - has so far chosen to adopt. This would be
no light matter. Thoughts of lions' dens and hornets' nests may come to
your minds. At the same time, however, I believe that those client
departments are looking to the Fund, not just for confirmation of what
their governments have already decided, but also for reasoned and
well-founded proposals for improving the treatment of climate change
issues.
I believe that improvements are greatly needed, and that governments are
in fact mishandling the issues. This mishandling has two related
aspects. First, actual official policies to curb (so-called)
'greenhouse-gas' emissions too often take the form of costly specific
schemes and regulations, rather than a general price-based incentive
such as a carbon tax: this is a subject which I hope and expect the Fund
will give a lot of attention to, as part of its review of the economics.
There is also, however, a more fundamental aspect. In my view, there is
good reason to question the basis and rationale of current policies -
the arguments, beliefs and presumptions which have led so many
governments to take decisive action and to agree that further action is
required. It is this latter aspect that I shall focus on today.
The rest of my talk comes under four headings. Under each of these, I
shall set out my case for repositioning on the Fund's part, for
redefining its point of departure and widening its range of concerns. My
proposals form a sequence, from relatively modest (but significant) to
more far-reaching. In headline form, they can be summarised as follows:
.. First, back off: define, and give expression to, a less presumptive
and more accurate point of departure.
.. Second, reserve judgement: a more considered point of departure, while
taking full account of what I call the official policy consensus, should
not take as given the basis and rationale for that consensus.
.. Third, take due note: be aware of, and prepared to draw attention to,
the strong elements of over-presumption which enter into official
thinking and policies in this area. In particular, take note of the
evidence that the established official advisory process, which
governments - and, as it would seem, the Fund, place so much reliance
on, is flawed.
.. Fourth, and more controversially, move in: go ahead with actions
designed to evaluate and to strengthen the advisory process.
2 Repositioning: (i) taking a less presumptive and more accurate stance
By way of illustrating what I see as over-presumption today within the
Fund, and hence my suggestion for backing off, I will take the address
that one of your Deputy Managing Directors, Takato**** Kato, delivered on
behalf of the Fund to the recent mass meeting in Bali - the 13th
Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change. Had I had been asked my opinion before the event, I would have
suggested two changes at any rate in Mr Kato's text.
First, here is the opening sentence.
'Climate change is the largest collective action problem that the world
faces'.
This form of words is open to objection on two grounds. The first
ground is over-confidence: 'may well be' is more accurate than 'is'.
Second, the term 'climate change' is misused here. Along with the OECD
Secretary-General at Bali and elsewhere, and in company also with the
heads of the UNDP and the UNEP in a recent joint statement, Mr Kato,
without actually saying so, used the term 'climate change' to refer only
to changes arising from human activity, as though no other factors were
involved. But other factors are involved: climate change can occur, has
occurred, and may well be occurring now, independently of human
activity. Hence this use of language, though admittedly sanctioned by
the UN Framework Convention and followed in the Stern Review, is
misleading. The Fund should not fall into it.
Here then is my suggested alternative form of words for that opening
sentence. In relation to climate change, it draws on the more accurate
language of the piece in the last World Economic Outlook, entitled
'Climate Change: Economic Impact and Policy Responses', by MM. Jones,
Keen, Norregaard and Strand. Suggested new wording is italicised.
'Climate change resulting from man-made increases in atmospheric
'greenhouse gas' concentrations may well be the largest collective
action problem that the world faces'.
Incidentally, while the WEO piece uses the term 'climate change'
correctly, the authors are too presumptive in saying that it 'presents a
serious challenge to human welfare'. I would have argued for replacing
'presents' by 'could present'.
Here is another sentence from Mr Kato's address for which, had
op****tunity beckoned, I would have proposed some changes:
'Early and sustained action is needed to avoid future harm, given the
latest evidence emerging from the climate science and the rapid growth
in global emissions projected for the coming decades without policy
intervention.'
This wording too is over-confident. Further, it is misleading, in that
it gives the impression that no action, or 'policy intervention', is
currently under way or in prospect, which is far from being the case. I
would have suggested:
'Further prompt and sustained action may well be needed to avoid future
harm, given the latest evidence emerging from the climate science and
the rapid growth in global emissions projected for the coming decades
without additional policy intervention'.
In a recent article I grouped the above quotes from these two Fund
sources together with some similar high-level OECD statements. I said of
these texts collectively that:
'Like the Stern Review, they take too little account of the multiple
uncertainties which still pervade this whole array of subjects and the
range and depth of professional disagreements that still exist. They
treat as established facts what should be viewed as no more than working
hypotheses. In both the OECD and the Fund, the issues are being
prejudged'.
So my opening argument today is that the Fund should back off from
following the crowd. Simply in the interests of accuracy, it should from
now on eschew forms of over-presumptive language that are in general
use.
Aside from the above repositioning, what else can be said about the
point of departure that is appropriate for the Fund? To answer that
question, it is necessary to bear in mind the official policy consensus.
3 Repositioning: (ii) reserving judgement on the basis for policy
A world-wide official consensus
With few exceptions, governments across the world are firmly committed
to the view that anthropogenic global warming constitutes a serious
problem which requires official action at both national and
international level. A recent high-level restatement to that effect was
contained in the Declaration issued at the close of the G8 Summit
meeting in Heiligendamm last June. In paragraph 49 of the Declaration
the G8 leaders said that 'global greenhouse emissions must stop rising,
followed by substantial global emission reductions.' In pretty well
every democratic country, this official consensus is not at all a matter
of political controversy: to the contrary, it enjoys general cross-party
sup****t.
The consensus is not new. Climate change issues, and in particular the
extent and possible consequences of anthropogenic global warming, have
been on the international agenda for 20 years or more; and it is now
over 15 years since governments decided, collectively and almost
unanimously, that determined steps should be taken to deal with what
they agreed was a major problem. The decisive collective commitment was
made in 1992, through the Framework Convention which almost all
countries have ratified. The Convention specifies that its 'ultimate
objective' is
'to achieve . stabilization of greenhouse gas emissions in the
atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic
interference with the climate system'.
Precisely this form of words is repeated in the Heiligendamm G8 Summit
Declaration.
Since 1992, many governments have acted, at state and provincial as well
as national level, and collectively within the European Union, through
what is now a wide range of measures and programmes, to curb emissions,
of CO2 in particular. They have entered into commitments accordingly.
Despite the limitations of what has so far been achieved, the accepted
direction of policy remains clear and virtually unquestioned. Both
nationally and internationally, new and far-reaching measures to curb
emissions are under consideration or in prospect.
In taking this course, governments have met with widespread public
approval. Prominent among the unofficial sources of sup****t are media
commentators on environmental and scientific issues, scientific bodies
including the Royal Society, environmental NGOs, and, increasingly,
large business enterprises. Further, there is strong public sup****t for
the consensus position among economists, as evidenced for example in the
Stern Review and the list of those (including four Nobel prizewinners)
endorsing it; in a public statement of December 2005 by 25 leading
American academics; and in a similar recent statement signed by 271
university economists in Australia.
Given the history and the situation as thus outlined, I think it is both
inevitable and right that the Fund, in line with the other international
organisations which have been involved over a longer period with climate
change issues, should take the official policy consensus as given: for
the IMF as for other agencies, what your member governments have agreed
has to be the basis on which your own work goes ahead. Let me emphasise
that the less presumptive and more accurate use of language, which I
have just suggested for the Fund, would not in any way put in question
the policy consensus.
However, when it comes to the generally agreed basis and rationale for
policy, what the Fund should take as given is more open to debate. Hence
my suggested slogan under this heading, 'Reserve judgement', which I
will now expand on.
The basis for consensus
What was it that persuaded governments across the world, more than 15
years ago, to take the possible dangers of anthropogenic global warming
so seriously, and what is it that has caused them to maintain and even
intensify their concerns? I think the answer is straightforward. From
the start the main influence was, as it still is, the scientific advice
provided to them.
That advice can and does come from many sources; but the main single
channel for it, indeed the only channel of advice for governments
collectively, has been the series of massive and wide-ranging *****sment
Re****ts produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC). The first of these, which appeared in 1990, formed the basis
for the negotiations that led up to the drafting of the Framework
Convention; and the three successor re****ts that have been prepared
since 1992 have served to lend further sup****t to the consensus then
established. The last in the series, referred to for short as AR4, was
completed and published in the course of last year. As with earlier
re****ts, it chiefly comprises the massive separate volumes issued by
each of the Panel's three Working Groups. Between them these three
volumes, each with its own Summary for Policymakers, come to around
3,000 pages, and some 2,500 experts - authors, contributors and
reviewers - were directly involved in preparing them: I refer to this
small army of participants as the IPCC expert network.
The IPCC does not itself undertake or commission research: the
*****sment Re****ts review and draw on the already published work of
others. Most of this work is financed by governments, and the
governments concerned thus have their own sources of information and
advice: their thinking and actions do not necessarily depend on what the
*****sment Re****ts have said. In the British case, for example, the
Stern Review drew directly on already published scientific work, rather
than on the draft texts of AR4 which were then becoming available. It
may well be that if governments had never created the Panel official
policies in most countries would have evolved in much the same way, in
response to much the same advice. The work of the IPCC forms one element
in the advisory process, but not by any means the whole of it.
All the same, the Panel is influential and im****tant in its own right.
Its re****ts carry substantial weight, with public opinion as well as its
member governments, because of their wide-ranging coverage of the
issues, their extensive and ordered scientific participation, the
extended review process that they go through, and the fact that the
Panel alone is authorised to serve and inform the world as a whole. Its
special place in the scheme of things has been widely acknowledged. In
their Summit Declaration, the G8 leaders explicitly referred to IPCC
re****ts as a prime source. More recently, the work of the Panel has
received further and conspicuous international recognition through the
award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, which it shared with Al Gore. It is
standard practice to cite the IPCC as an authority, as both the OECD
Secretary-General and Mr Kato did in their respective Bali
presentations.
Through its three working groups, the IPCC covers the whole spectrum of
topics that are raised by the subject of climate change, including
economic aspects. However, the central element in the body of advice
which it provides, and which so many governments have relied on, relates
to the scientific aspects which are reviewed in the re****ts from its
Working Group I. Commenting on the latest of these re****ts, at the time
of its release just over a year ago, a leading British climate
scientist, Professor Mike Hulme, said that it 'presents an authoritative
*****sment of the scientific understanding of climate change as a
physical phenomenon'. This in particular is what the 20-year process of
inquiry by the Panel, and the large and growing body of work that it
draws on, is seen as having chiefly contributed. The WGI scientific
*****sment, and the published work that entered into it, are taken by
governments as both authoritative and conclusive.
Reserving judgement
Given past history and the confidence so widely placed in the key
science-related messages, as conveyed most recently in AR4, it is easy
to explain the strong assertions that I queried above on the part of
leading officials in the Fund and the OECD. Both organisations appear to
be taking it as given, and as not to be questioned or even considered
within the studies they have now embarked on, that the established
official policy consensus is well grounded on scientific findings that
can no longer be seriously doubted. In so concluding they are in line,
not only with other international agencies, but also with their official
clients in treasuries and finance ministries. All the same, I hold that
this is not the right point of departure for either agency (or for the
clients). I believe that today's widely shared presumptions concerning
the scientific basis of policy go further than is either necessary or
wise.
Such a judgement may itself appear as highly presumptive. Why (you could
well ask) should acceptance of widely received scientific opinion be
placed under the heading of 'undue presumption'? Why should the Fund
officials who are now becoming more closely involved with climate change
issues, who with few exceptions are not scientifically knowledgeable and
who have an exacting agenda of their own, spend time and energy trying
to second-guess the considered scientific advice that their governments
have commissioned and accepted? Why not simply ensure a due division of
professional labour, and adopt as the agreed point of departure for the
Fund's economic studies what is widely taken to be an established
scientific consensus?
A similar line of questioning was put to me not long ago, in a more
directly personal way, by a much respected fellow-economist. He wrote,
with manifest signs of incredulity:
'You have formed the clear and strong view that what is overwhelmingly
the opinion of the relevant scientific community in all of the leading
countries is wrong. I do not see that there is a rational basis for an
outsider to the science taking the view that the weight of established
scientific opinion is probably wrong.'
In commenting on my colleague's remarks, some substantial rewording is
called for. First, my position is not as he stated it. I have never
argued, I do not argue now, that 'the science' is 'wrong': there is a
clear and well recognised difference between questioning and denial,
between being an agnostic and being an atheist. Further, his reference
to scientific opinion as 'established', which implies permanently
settled beyond question, is not appropriate. 'Prevailing', 'dominant' or
'generally accepted' are more accurate terms, and from now on I shall
use the first of these.
All the same, my colleague would be justified in asking, no less
pointedly, a reformulated question. What grounds can a layman and an
outsider have, first, for taking an agnostic and questioning view on
matters that fall outside his own sphere of expertise, and where there
appears to be a professional consensus, and second, for arguing that,
even against the 20-year history just sketched out, key government
departments and international agencies should now be ready to do the
same? What reasons can be given for thinking that the prevailing
scientific opinion, which provides the point of departure and the main
justification for a world-wide policy consensus, should be treated as
less than authoritative?
In the section that now follows, I respond to these pertinent questions.
I believe that my dismissive professional colleague, along with the OECD
Secretary-General, Mr Kato, Nicholas (now Lord) Stern, and received
opinion generally, is presuming too much. I hold that the Fund, without
departing from the official policy consensus, and without taking the
position that 'the science' is wrong, should not go so far as to align
itself with currently received opinion. Rather, it should take due note
of the ways in which climate change issues are subject to mishandling
through acceptance of unwarranted presumptions.
4 Repositioning: (iii) confronting unwarranted presumptions
Within the generally received opinion of today, three interrelated
leading elements are:
.. (1) That the official policy consensus, as interpreted today by
governments and international agencies, mirrors prevailing scientific
opinion and goes no further than that opinion would warrant.
.. (2) That prevailing scientific opinion must now be viewed as no longer
open to serious question.
.. (3) That the process of review and inquiry from which prevailing
scientific opinion has emerged, and in particular the IPCC process as
its leading element, are professionally above reproach.
..All these beliefs are unfounded. They betray respectively a lack of
awareness of the present extent of overstatement, over-confidence, and
ingrained bias.
Forms of over-presumption: (1) going too far
On the part of well placed persons and institutions, official and
unofficial, it is common to find highly-coloured and presumptive
assertions which go well beyond prevailing scientific opinion as
re****ted in the text of AR4. Here are a few characteristic instances:
.. Tony Blair, as British Prime Minister, together with his Dutch
counterpart, in a joint letter of October 2006 to other EU leaders: 'We
have a window of only 10-15 years to take the steps we need to avoid
crossing a catastrophic tipping point'.
.. President Sarkozy of France, in some remarks last year shortly before
his election to office: 'what is at stake is the fate of humanity as a
whole'.
.. The Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, writing in the latest
Human Development Re****t (p. 23): 'Climate change threatens the whole
human family'.
.. Nicholas Stern, writing in The Guardian (30 November 2007): 'We risk
damage on a scale larger than the two world wars of the past century'.
.. Just before the Bali meeting opened, 150 business leaders placed a
double full-page advertisment in the Financial Times with what they
termed a 'Bali communique'. In this do***ent they asserted that : 'There
is no doubt that the fate of our civilisation hangs in the balance'.
Such assertions are specimens of what I have termed the heightened
milieu consensus. All of them, and countless others of their kind,
pur****t to be statements of fact; but in reality they are no more than
conjecture. They represent extrapolations, not direct well-founded
inferences, from AR4 and the array of studies that it draws on. Although
they do not accurately mirror prevailing scientific opinion, they have
now become widely accepted presuppositions of policy. One illustration
of this kind of official thinking is that some governments, including my
own, have seen fit to distribute to schools, as an officially
recommended source, Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth.
Interestingly, assertions such as those I just quoted have been
criticised by Professor Hulme, speaking in 2006, as forms of what he
called 'a discourse of catastrophe [which] is a political and rhetorical
device'. Referring to the above quotation from Tony Blair, he described
our then Prime Minister as among 'recent examples of the catastrophists',
and said: 'The language of catastrophe is not the language of science.
It will not be visible in next year's global *****sment [AR4] from the
world authority of [the IPCC]'. He went on to contrast the respective
positions of the 'catastrophists' and the climate scientists.
However, while Hulme was right about the more guarded language of AR4,
the unqualified contrast that he went on to draw does not hold good.
While Blair may have deserved to have the label of 'catastrophist'
attached to him for the remarks just quoted (and others like them), it
was not with him that they originated. He and his Dutch co-signatory, as
also Sarkozy and Ban in the above quotations, almost certainly did not
write their own speeches. What they said was presumably sanctioned, and
probably drafted, by their scientific and environmental advisers and by
the departments those people work in; and had it not been so sanctioned,
those advisers and departments could have ensured - they could ensure
now, if they saw fit to do so - that future high-level public statements
would take a more measured and qualified tone.
The fact is that there is no clear dividing line between 'catastrophists'
and climate scientists. It is influential climate scientists, taking a
more sombre view than Hulme, who write or approve the 'catastrophist'
scripts of leading lay figures, and who in some prominent cases have
made similar pronouncements of their own. It was on the basis of views
conveyed by climate scientists that the opening sentence of the Stern
Review's 'summary and conclusions' reads (p. xv): 'The scientific
evidence is now overwhelming: climate change is a serious global threat,
and it demands an urgent global response'. Such views, though widely
held by scientists, are neither definitive nor fully representative.
This is not to say that the scientists in question are wrong, nor that
the strong above assertions by leading figures are provably mistaken.
The moral to be drawn is twofold.
.. First, and to repeat: the alarm-prone positions widely taken by
political leaders, top international civil servants, eminent scientists
in fields other than climate science, leading industrialists, widely
read commentators and media outlets, and an array of NGOs, not to
mention some eminent economists, do not mirror the more considered
language of AR4: they go well beyond it.
.. Second, and not surprisingly: in relation to most if not all aspects
of this whole complex of issues, there exists a range of expert views
concerning the evidence and the conclusions to be drawn from it.
This brings me to my second category of over-presumption.
Forms of over-presumption: (2) overstating the bounds of what is known
On the opening page of the WEO article that I referred to above, the
authors say that it
'briefly lays out what is known about the science of climate change, to
set the scene for a review of its economic impact'. I think the use of
'known' in this connection is not appropriate. 'Widely held': yes.
'Almost universally believed': perhaps. But 'Known' goes too far.
Again, the G8 Summit Declaration refers to 'the scientific knowledge as
represented in the recent IPCC re****ts.' Had I been a pre-Summit Sherpa,
I would have argued for changing 'scientific knowledge' to 'the weight
of scientific opinion'.
The fact is that what is under review here is a climate system of
extraordinary complexity which is far from being well understood. The
IPCC itself has taken a lot of trouble to weigh and categorise the
varying degrees of confidence with which (as it concludes) particular
statements can be made; and its Third *****sment Re****t (TAR) of 2001
contained an instructive diagram showing what it described as 'the
cascade of uncertainties'. The cascade includes the future course of
economic change; the resulting changes in emissions of CO2 and other
anthropogenic 'greenhouse gases'; the effects of projected emissions on
atmospheric concentrations of those gases; the resulting effects on
estimated radiative forcing, and the further consequences for surface
temperatures; and the possible climatic, biophysical and socio-economic
impacts of specified temperature increases. All of these uncertainties
remain today; and I would add, as a further aspect, that since 2001
serious questions have been raised about evidence which the Panel has
drawn on of past temperature changes: hence the actual extent and
significance of recent global warming are now more in doubt than before.
The depth of continuing uncertainty about the properties of the climate
system, and the wide range of expert views today, form the
subject-matter of a notable do***ent recently brought out by the office
of the Republican ranking member of the Environment and Public Works
Committee of the US Senate. This re****t is a kind of nonconformist
anthology: it presents, through summary direct quotation, the
recently-expressed views of some 400 professionals from different
relevant subject areas, all of whom question one or more aspects of
prevailing views on climate change issues.
Two leading themes that emerge from the dossier are:
.. Since 'the causes of climate change are many, various and very
incompletely understood',7 it is difficult - some would say impossible -
to isolate the effects of human activity.
.. Natural influences on the climate, as opposed to the consequences of
human activity, have continued to predominate. A number of the
scientists quoted place special emphasis on solar influences.
An aspect of the dossier worth noting is that many of those who appear
in it are meteorologists: their perspective was new to me. On my count,
no less than 55 American meteorologists are quoted. This lends weight to
the view expressed by one of them (Cohen, p. 37), who has written: 'I do
not agree with all the IPCC's conclusions and know through peer
discussions that the idea of a consensus in the meteorological community
is false'.
Of course, the fact that nonconformist views of various kinds are still
widely held by informed persons does not serve to discredit the widely
accepted hypothesis that 'dangerous anthropogenic interference with the
climate system' is taking place, or the official policy consensus that
is linked to it. Nor does it justify inaction. But the contents of the
dossier lend weight to an *****sment made by another instructive
do***ent, published a year or so ago, called the Independent Summary for
Policymakers. The authors conclude that, while the hypothesis of
anthropogenic global warming 'is credible, and merits continued
attention', it 'cannot be proven by theoretical arguments, and the
available data allow [it] to be credibly disputed'.
Statements to the effect that 'the science' is 'settled', that the
scientific evidence is now 'overwhelming', and that 'the scientific
debate is now over', are unwarranted. As I have noted, such assertions
are not drawn direct from AR4. However, they could not have gained such
widespread acceptance were it not for the continuing flaws that have
characterised the large-scale established official process of review and
inquiry which, though it extends well beyond the work of the IPCC, finds
its fullest expression in the *****sment Re****ts.
Forms of over-presumption: (3) uncritically accepting a flawed advisory
process
Over the past 20 years governments everywhere, and many outside
observers too, have placed uncritical reliance on the advisory process
as a whole and the work of the IPCC in particular. I believe that this
widespread trust is unwarranted, and that this fact puts in doubt the
accepted basis of official climate policies. This is not, as suggested
by Stern Review authors, merely a matter of 'procedures' as distinct
from substance. If and in so far as the established advisory process
that the world relies on is lacking in objectivity, and is not
professionally watertight, the basis and rationale of the official
policy consensus are put in question.
Panel and process
Why do governments, and outsiders too, place so much trust in the IPCC?
I think that the trust largely results from the wide and structured
expert participation that the IPCC process ensures. People visualise an
array of technically competent persons whose knowledge and wisdom are
effectively brought to bear through an independent, objective and
thoroughly professional scientific inquiry. Indeed, many outside
observers identify the Panel with the network, as though well-qualified
and disinterested experts were the only people involved. The reality is
both more complex and less reassuring.
A basic distinction has to be made between the IPCC as such, that is to
say the Panel, and the IPCC process. The two are not the same, and the
process involves three quite distinct groups of participants.
The first of these groups comprises the Panel itself, which controls the
preparation of the re****ts, along with its two subsidiary bodies. The
Panel effectively comprises those officials whom governments choose to
send to Panel meetings. My impression is that, generally speaking, these
are not high-ranking persons. They include scientists as well as laymen.
Numbers are not fixed, but a typical Panel meeting might involve some
300-400 participants. Working directly for the Panel is the IPCC
Secretariat, though this is a small group whose functions are mainly of
a routine administrative kind. A more influential body is the 28-strong
IPCC Bureau, comprising high-level experts in various disciplines from
across the world, chosen by the Panel. The Bureau acts in a managing and
coordinating role under the Panel's broad direction.
The second group is made up of the now 2,500-strong expert network, the
persons who put together the draft *****sment Re****ts. This network is
separate and distinct from the Panel itself. There is little or no
overlap between the two bodies.
Last but far from least, there are the government departments and
agencies which the Panel re****ts to: it is here, and not in the Panel
itself, that the ultimate 'policymakers' are to be found. The relevant
political leaders and senior officials within these departments and
agencies make up the core of what I call the environmental policy
milieu. This milieu also comprises leading non-official members of the
IPCC Bureau, past as well as current; and together with the most
influential members of the Panel itself, these latter persons make up
what may be termed the informal directing circle of the IPCC.
Policy commitment
The IPCC as such has been formally instructed by its member governments,
in the 'principles governing IPCC work,' that its re****ts 'should be
neutral with respect to policy'. However, this instruction must be
interpreted as referring specifically and exclusively to the
contribution made by the expert network through the re****ting process.
It does not, and could not, apply to the other two participating groups.
The official Panel members, as also the policy milieu which they re****t
to, are almost without exception far from neutral: they are committed,
inevitably and rightly, to the objective of curbing emissions, as a
means to combating climate change, which their governments agreed on
when they ratified the Framework Convention; and most of them are
likewise committed to the kinds of policies that their governments have
adopted in pursuit of that objective. As officials, they are bound by
what their governments have decided. That is the context within which
the three successive IPCC *****sment Re****ts prepared since 1992 have
been put together by the network and reviewed by member governments. The
clients and patrons of the expert network, with few exceptions, take it
as given that anthropogenic global warming is a serious problem which
demands, and has rightly been accorded, both national and international
action. Thus departments and agencies which are not-and cannot be-'policy
neutral' are deeply involved, from start to finish, in the preparation
of the *****sment Re****ts.
It is against this background, of a committed milieu, that some basic
features of the re****ting process have to be borne in mind. The choice
of lead authors for the *****sment Re****ts largely rests with the
already-committed member governments, since lists that they provide form
the starting point for the selection process; complete draft texts of
the Working Group re****ts go to these governments for review; and it is
governments, as represented in the Panel, that sign off on the final
versions of the *****sment Re****ts and amend the draft Summaries for
Policymakers before they approve these also for publication. The fact is
that departments and agencies which are not - and cannot be -
uncommitted in relation to climate change issues are deeply involved,
from start to finish, in the re****ting process.
Do these facts in themselves put in question the expert re****ting
process and the *****sment Re****ts? As a former national and
international official, I would say: No, not necessarily. Policy
commitment on the part of member governments could in principle go
together with a resolve to ensure that the re****ting process remained
open, thorough, objective and policy-neutral. This indeed is what
governments believe, or at least maintain, is the state of affairs that
they have created; and I think many outside persons believe or presume
the same. In this generally accepted picture of the IPCC process, an
invisible Chinese wall separates the committed patrons and clients of
the re****ting process from the array of disinterested scientists,
policy-neutral in their expert capacity, who take part in it.
I have come to believe that this picture is not accurate, and that the
expert re****ting process is flawed. Despite the numbers of persons
involved, and the lengthy formal review procedures, the preparation of
the IPCC *****sment Re****ts is far from being a model of rigour,
inclusiveness and impartiality. In my view, the flaws in the process,
can be largely accounted for by a pervasive bias on the part of the
people and organisations that direct and control it. I shall comment
first on some flaws and then on the forms and sources of bias.
Errors, omissions and lapses
Despite the numbers involved, the expert process has not ensured
appropriately broad professional involvement. A case in point is the
treatment of statistical issues. A leading American statistician, Edward
Wegman, has noted that:
'The atmospheric science community, while heavily using statistical
methods, is remarkably disconnected from the mainstream community of
statisticians in a way, for example, that is no
--
Regards
Bonzo
"IPCC staff is working feverishly on a theory that sup****ts global
cooling as proof of global warming. Stay tuned." Addison Gardner
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