Sunday, August 29, 2010

UN climate change panel to be warned over reports

The United Nation's climate change organisation faces a warning over how it uses scientific facts in its influential reports, following the discovery of a series of embarrassing errors in its work.

A review of the practices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been conducted in response to intense criticism of the body, whose reports are used by governments to inform policy decisions on global warming.

The findings of the review are due to be handed to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon tomorrow.
Conducted by a committee of representatives from the world's leading scientific bodies, the analysis is expected to recommend a number of changes to the way the IPCC compiles and checks its extensive 1,000 page reports.

The committee, which is made up of scientific organisations that form the InterAcademy Council, is also expected to recommend changes to help the IPCC keep its reports, which take around six years to complete, more up to date with current science.
Evidence given to the committee has also called for a tightening of the way facts and references are checked before the reports are published.
The IPCC has been under scrutiny after it admitted making an error in its 2007 report, that stated Himalayan glaciers could melt to a fifth of current levels by 2035 – a statement that was wrong by over 300 years.
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