IPCC Lead Authors - Latest Report Watered Down W/O Scientific Evidence By Handful Of Governments

[hatrack]

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But several researchers say officials from countries such as China, Saudi Arabia and Russia attempted to obstruct discussions to review the original draft of the document by debating existing scientific studies without offering their own evidence. "There are obviously a number of definitive statements included in the report, but there were certainly a number of instances that indicated that particularly Saudi Arabia and China were trying to reduce the policy relevance of the report, or increase the discussions of uncertainties," said Dr. David Karoly, a meteorology professor at the University of Oklahoma.

In many cases, warnings about impacts being "likely" or "very likely" were replaced with statements that spoke about "projected" changes in climate. In one case, even a warning about impacts on Arctic communities being "virtually certain" was replaced in the final document with a statement that suggested the changes were "projected" to occur.

Karoly said another section which added some context and detailed assessment of possible scenarios of pollution levels and their future impact was scrapped simply because it had been included in a different section of the UN report that was released in February. "It's not at all controversial, but Saudi Arabia, China and Russia required that that section of the table be removed," said Karoly, who, along with two other lead authors, launched a formal protest against some changes that proposed to water down the report's findings. "There was no scientific reason for that. They just said it should be removed. They didn't actually have any questions at all about the scientific validity of the material that was there."

Lara Hansen, a climate scientist from the World Wildlife Fund, said the report has gone from being a summary for policy-makers to one that was made by policy-makers to delay calls for urgent action. "Those countries that benefit substantially from the continued fossil-fuel market, especially gas and coal -- which includes the United States, China and Saudi Arabia -- were very vocal," said Hansen.

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http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=1f8cffee-addb-44da-9209-2be0c3b143ed&k=52748