Climate change panel in hot water again over ‘biased’ energy report
The allegations are particularly damaging as they represent the second controversy to hit the IPPC in a matter of years.
By Oliver Wright, Whitehall Editor, The Independent
The world's foremost authority on climate change used a Greenpeace campaigner to help write one of its key reports, which critics say made misleading claims about renewable energy, The Independent has learnt.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), set up by the UN in 1988 to advise governments on the science behind global warming, issued a report last month suggesting renewable sources could provide 77 per cent of the world's energy supply by 2050. But in supporting documents released this week, it emerged that the claim was based on a real-terms decline in worldwide energy consumption over the next 40 years – and that the lead author of the section concerned was an employee of Greenpeace. Not only that, but the modelling scenario used was the most optimistic of the 164 investigated by the IPCC.
Critics said the decision to highlight the 77 per cent figure showed a bias within the IPCC against promoting potentially carbon-neutral energies such as nuclear fuel. One climate change sceptic said it showed the body was not truly independent and relied too heavily on green groups for its evidence.
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IPCC WG3 and the Greenpeace Karaoke
By Steve McIntyre, Climate Audit On May 9, 2011, the IPCC announced:Close to 80 percent of the world‘s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century if backed by the right enabling public policies a new report shows.In accompanying interviews, IPCC officials said that the obstacles were not scientific or technological, but merely a matter of political will.
