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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | A time for introspection

A time for introspection

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published Published on Feb 9, 2010   modified Modified on Feb 9, 2010

Increasing scrutiny of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and, in particular, its chairman, should lead to reforms

THE past month has not been a good one for Rajendra Pachauri (pictured above), the charismatic chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and director general of TERI, an Indian research institute. His numerous positions on boards and industrial advisory panels, in India and beyond, have led to charges of conflicts of interest. His intemperate defence of mistakes about Himalayan glaciers in the most recent IPCC report had to be followed by a public statement of regret as it became clear that the IPCC had indeed been wrong—and that its source has been a magazine article rather than a piece of scientific literature. And, to cap it all, public mockery of mildly salacious passages in his recently published novel (he writes poetry, too) has added further spice, if not substance, to the stories.

The mistaken claim about the glaciers—that they could disappear by 2035—“never really came to my attention” before the end of last year, Dr Pachauri maintains, though the opportunities for it to have done so were numerous. Syed Hasnain, the researcher cited by press reports as a source for the number (though he denies saying it), is now a consultant at TERI, though Dr Pachauri says he “hardly interacts” with him. The claim featured prominently in a presentation that Anastasios Kentarchos of the European Union gave at a TERI meeting where Dr Pachauri was to deliver a “keynote” address. Dr Pachauri, however, says he left without attending any of the actual sessions. Pallava Bagla, who brought the story to wide attention in Science last November, says he discussed the matter with Dr Pachauri and e-mailed him about it. Dr Pachauri says the discussions were just a question at a press conference that he did not really take on board, and that he read no such e-mails.

Shades of grey

The glacier story has led the IPCC’s critics to pore over its most recent report, focusing on claims that arise from the “grey literature”—normally taken to mean reports by governments and other organisations that are not published commercially or passed through academic channels. It is widely believed the IPCC looks only at peer-reviewed studies, but the panel’s guidelines do allow information from elsewhere, as long as it is critically assessed and has proper references.

What counts as grey, though, is itself a grey area. Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution, who is co-chairman of the IPCC’s working group II, defends his decision to cite a story from the New York Times as an illustration of the effect of poor electricity supply during a heatwave: it was not being used to provide quantitative data, or an assessment of how confident one should be in a result, but just to say that something happened. Still, most would not see the Gray Lady as grey literature.

To accept a role for grey literature at the IPCC, provided it is properly and critically assessed by the authors, is not to say that peer-reviewed publications should not dominate the assessments. They should. But to allow nothing but peer-reviewed literature would not only cut the IPCC off from some relevant material, it could also help well-placed insiders to marginalise opinions they do not approve of. There are indications of this in some of the e-mails from and to the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that were released on to the web late last year.

The IPCC’s own review process is more catholic; it is quite easy to become a reviewer. But that may not, in itself, be enough. One reviewer of the previous report pointed out work by Roger Pielke junior of the University of Colorado that contradicted what the IPCC was saying about climate-related trends in the costs of disasters. In responding, an anonymous IPCC author said that he or she believed Dr Pielke had changed his mind on the matter, without either asking him or, apparently, studying his most recent publications on the subject, which showed he had not. (Dr Pielke also thinks a graph on the subject was redrawn to buttress a case that cannot actually be stood up.)

The fact that critics can dig far enough into the reviewing process to see such details speaks well of the IPCC’s transparency, but not all of its procedures are easy to scrutinise. The selection of authors, for example, is something of a black box. Since it is on the expertise, judgment and character of these authors, as much or more than on procedure, that the whole enterprise rests, this needs reform.

Other procedures are simply lacking. Charges of conflict of interest levelled at Dr Pachauri are hard to judge because the governments which organise the IPCC have provided no way for interests to be declared, or for conflicts to be assessed. Dr Pachauri says he would be quite happy for them to do so. At the same time, interpreting such conflict as suggestive of personal gain, he rejects charges made against him. He says that, on his appointment in 2002, he refused even to take money for his office from the IPCC, and that all payments for his advice and services go to TERI, not to him. Though he has brought new resources and standing to the institute, his TERI salary, he says, has risen only in line with inflation. How much that would be, though, he cannot say. He does not, apparently, trouble himself to know what his salary actually is.

The Economist, 4 February, 2010, http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15450615&source=most_commented
 

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