Scientists working on a landmark UN report on climate change to be published this week are at loggerheads over their explanation for why the earth’s surface temperature has stopped rising as rapidly as they previously predicted. The behind-the-scenes wrangling is likely to cast a shadow over the publication on Friday of the 2,000-page report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). --Robert Mendick,
The Sunday Telegraph, 22 September 2013
For the first time, an assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be widely judged more for what it says about the IPCC than for what it says about the climate. It is not the climate that needs fixing but the climate models. --Rupert Darwall,
National Review Online, 22 September 2013
Now that the global warming ‘pause’ has made the transition from sceptical to mainstream the exclusion of it from previous debates because of the ‘false balance’ argument can be seen for what it was. It actually kept the truth from the audience. It was censorship. It turned out to be the right idea, and journalism – the testing of viewpoints in the cauldron of debate – misled the audience. The handling of the ‘pause’ in global surface temperature has been a failure for science communication and science journalism. --David Whitehouse,
The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 23 September 2013
More than ever, scientists say they’re convinced the Earth’s climate is warming. Yet lawmakers are struggling to do anything about it because the pace of change has unexpectedly slowed. The data has caused a United Nations panel to lower predictions of the pace of global temperature increases by 2100, according to draft documents obtained by Bloomberg ahead of publication due on Sept. 27. The findings muddy the picture about how much carbon dioxide output is affecting the climate, giving ammunition to those who doubt the issue needs urgent action. Skeptics have succeeded in “confusing the public,” said Michael Jacobs, who advised the U.K. government on climate policy until 2010. --Alex Morales,
Bloomberg, 23 September 2013
It's a climate puzzle that has vexed scientists for more than a decade. Since just before the start of the 21st century, the Earth's average global surface temperature has failed to rise despite soaring levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and years of dire warnings from environmental advocates. Now, as scientists with the IPCC gather in Sweden, they are finding themselves pressured to explain this glaring discrepancy. "The stakes have been raised by various people, especially the skeptics." --Monte Morin,
Los Angeles Times, 23 September 2013
This unpredicted hiatus just reflects the fact that we don't understand things as well as we thought and vocal critic of the climate change establishment. Now the IPCC finds itself in a position that a science group never wants to be in. It's in spin management mode. -- Roger Pielke Jr.,
Los Angeles Times, 23 September 2013
Political leaders who reject urgent action to cut emissions should be punished at the ballot box because the world is heading for a “heart attack” caused by rising temperatures, according to one of the UN’s top climate officials. Halldor Thorgeirsson was speaking before today’s opening of a meeting of scientists and government officials from around the world to negotiate the final wording of a major report on climate change. The negotiations will include a debate about how the report should explain an unexpected slowdown in the rate of warming since 1998. A draft of the Summary for Policymakers by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, seen by The Times, appears to concede that there are weaknesses in the computer models on which many politicians and scientists rely for doom-laden predictions. --Ben Webster,
The Times, 23 September 2013
Benny Peiser, the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation saw it differently. He seized on reports of the Arctic ice cap’s recovery, circulating them to ministers, MPs and other policymakers. “The science is going nowhere,” he said. “Even if you accept the idea that CO2 and other greenhouse gases will warm the world, science cannot tell us by how much or what the effects are. The climate models have failed.” --Jonathan Leake,
The Sunday Times, 22 September 2013
What seems clear is that whatever our response to climate change, whether it is geoengineering or replacing fossil-fueled electricity generation with low-carbon power stations and wind farms, the bills are likely to be astronomical. As long as public confidence in climate science is falling, it would be a brave political leader to sanction spending on that scale. --Jonathan Leake,
The Sunday Times, 22 September 2013
