THE authors of the latest report from the UN鈥檚 Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change have been accused of altering key passages after the completion
of the report鈥檚 peer-review process last year. The passages appear in a chapter
on whether the 鈥渉and of man鈥� can be seen in recent global warming.
Roger Bate, environment director of the Institute of Economic Affairs in
London, says a sentence admitting that 鈥渘one of the studies cited has shown
clear evidence that we can attribute the observed changes [in global
temperature] to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases鈥� was
deleted. It was replaced by the claim that 鈥渋f changes cannot be fully explained
by natural climate variability, some (unknown) fraction of the changes must be
due to human influences鈥�.
The original text was agreed by a conference of scientists in Madrid last
November, but was altered prior to publication in June. 鈥淚鈥檓 not making a
judgment about which version is correct or about the authors鈥� motives, but these
are significant changes and an abuse of the scientific process,鈥� says Bate.
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