Scientific academy to conduct independent review of the IPCC's processes and procedures at request of UN and IPCC

The United Nations Secretary General and the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced today that they asked the InterAcademy Council (IAC) to conduct an independent review of the IPCC's processes and procedures to further strengthen the quality of the Panel's reports on climate change. The IAC is the umbrella organization for various national academies of science from countries around the world.

The review will examine every aspect of how the IPCC's reports are prepared, including the use of non-peer reviewed literature and the reflection of diverse viewpoints. The review will also examine institutional aspects, including management functions as well as the panel's procedures for communicating its findings with the public.

"The IPCC's mandate is to provide objective scientific assessments for decision-makers," said IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri, PhD. "The IPCC stands firmly behind the rigor and reliability of its Fourth Assessment Report from 2007, but we recognize that we can improve. We have listened and learned from our critics, and we intend to take every action we can to ensure that our reports are as robust as possible."

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Dr Pachauri formally requested the IAC to conduct the review after the proposal to carry out the review was communicated to IPCC member governments. The decision to engage the IAC was supported by the Executive Director of UNEP and the Secretary General of WMO.

"I am very grateful to the Secretary General's unwavering support, not only in jointly requesting the IAC to undertake this review, but for his steadfast support of the IPCC and climate change science," Dr Pachauri said.

Christopher Field, PhD., Co-chair of IPCC Working Group II, said: "We expect the recommendations from the IAC's review to inform how the IPCC prepares its fifth major assessment of global climate change, due to be published in 2013–2014. Meanwhile, the conclusions from the IPCC's 2007 report remain entirely valid: The climate is changing due to human activity, and the effects are already being felt around the globe. If anything, more recent data indicate that the IPCC's 2007 assessment underestimated the degree to which human activity is changing our climate."

Dr Field is also founding director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, professor of biological sciences at Stanford University and faculty director of Stanford's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve.

The review will be led by the IAC co-chairs Robbert Dijkgraaf, PhD., president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science, and Professor Lu Yongxiang, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The IAC will conduct its work independently according to its procedures for carrying out expert studies. The international experts who serve on IAC studies are not paid for their participation and are pro bono volunteers.

A copy of the IPCC's correspondence to the IAC requesting the review and outlining the scope of work can be found at www.ipcc.ch.

Source: IPCC