[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 21 (Thursday, February 11, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S549-S551]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, today I want to highlight several recent
media reports uncovering very serious errors and possible fraud by the
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
First of all, let me define what we are talking about here, because
it has been around for a long time but a lot of people have forgotten.
Way back in 1988, the United Nations formed the IPCC--the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The whole idea was to try to
determine whether manmade gases--anthropogenic gases, CO2,
and methane--caused global warming, and if in fact global warming is
taking place.
It is hard on a day such as today, and the last few days, to be
talking about global warming. I often say: Where is it when you need
it? But nonetheless, you need to know three things about the IPCC: No.
1, the Obama administration calls it the gold standard of climate
change science; No. 2, some say its reports on climate change represent
the so-called consensus of scientific opinion about global warming; and
No. 3, the IPCC and Al Gore were awarded the Nobel prize in 2007 for
``their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about
manmade climate change.''
Put simply, what this means is that in elite circles the IPCC is a
big deal. So when ABC News, The Economist, Time magazine, and the Times
of London, among many others, report that the IPCC's research contains
embarrassing flaws and that the IPCC chairman and scientists knew of
the flaws but published them anyway--well, you have the makings of a
major scientific scandal.
In fact, when Climategate first came out and it was discovered that
they had been cooking the science at the IPCC, the UK Telegraph said:
This is very likely the greatest scientific scandal of our generation.
So where to begin? Well, how about with the IPCC's claim that the
Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. It is not true. That is right;
it is simply false. Yet it was put into the IPCC's fourth assessment
report. These assessment reports come out every year, and that is what
the media normally get. They are not scientific reports, they are
assessments that are made for policymakers. Here is what we know:
According to the Sunday Times, the claim about the Himalayas was
based on--keep in mind we are talking about their statement that by
2035 the glaciers would melt--that claim was based on a 1999 story in a
news magazine which in turn was based on a short telephone interview
with someone named Syed Hasnain, who is a very little-known Indian
scientist.
Next, in 2005, the activist group World Wildlife Fund cited the story
in one of its climate change reports. Yet despite the fact that the
World Wildlife Fund report was not scientifically peer reviewed, it was
still referenced by the IPCC. It was still in their report.
Third, according to the Times:
The Himalayan glaciers are so thick and at such high
altitude that most glaciologists believe it would take
several hundred years to melt at the present rate. Some are
actually growing and many show little sign of change.
Lastly, when finally published, the Sunday Times wrote:
The IPCC report did give its source as the World Wildlife
Fund study but went further, suggesting the likelihood of the
glaciers melting was ``very high.''
The IPCC, by the way, defines this as having a probability of greater
than 90 percent.
So there you have that. But there is more. According to the Times:
The chairman [Rajendra Pachauri] of the leading climate
change watchdog was informed that claims about melting
Himalayan glaciers were false before the Copenhagen summit.
We all remember that Copenhagen summit in the middle of December. I
was there for 2 hours; many were there for 2 weeks. Now to continue to
quote from the Times article:
. . . [he] was told that the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change assessment that the glaciers would disappear
by 2035 was wrong, but he waited 2 months to correct it. He
failed to act despite learning that the claim had been
refuted by several leading glaciologists.
So why was the Himalayan error included? We now know from the very
IPCC scientist who edited the report's section on Asia that it was done
for political purposes. It was inserted to induce China, India, and
other countries--this was at Copenhagen--to take action on global
warming. According to the UK's Sunday Mail, Murari Lal, the scientist
in charge of the IPCC's chapter on Asia, said this:
We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact
policymakers and politicians and encourage them to take some
concrete action.
In other words, that is the motive she did it for. In other words,
the Sunday Mail wrote that Lal ``admitted the glacier alarmism was
indeed purely to put political pressure on world leaders.''
This is what we have suspected and has been documented in the recent
Climategate scandal. But there is still more. The glaciologist, Dr.
Hasnain, who originally made the alarmist 2035 claim, works for Dr.
Pachauri at his think tank in India. According to ABC News:
The glaciologist now works at the Energy and Resources
Institute in New Delhi, whose director is none other than
Rajendra Pachauri. Could this explain why Pachauri suppressed
the error in the Himalayan passage of the IPCC report for so
long?
Specifically, after the meeting in Copenhagen. So what has the IPCC
done to correct this fiasco? I went into the IPCC report to see if a
correction had been made. Well, the 2035 claim is still there. It is
still there now. It has been denied, but it is still there. There is a
note attached that says the following:
It has, however, recently come to our attention that a
paragraph in the 938-page Working Group II contribution to
the underlying assessment refers to poorly substantiated
estimates of rate of recession and date for the disappearance
of Himalayan glaciers. In drafting the paragraph in question,
the clear and well-established standards of evidence,
required by the IPCC procedures, were not applied properly.
I had to read this twice to understand what it said. The IPCC says
the glacier alarmism came about because of poorly substantiated
estimates. Well, that is one way of putting it. To me, from what we
know now, the leadership of the IPCC lied about the Himalayas. They
knew it was false, but for political purposes they kept it in.
I could go on and on, but let me cite a few more examples. The UK
Telegraph recently uncovered more problems. This is the entity that
said that is probably the greatest scientific scandal of our
generation. The IPCC's report from 2007 found observed reductions in
mountain ice in the Andes, Alps, and Africa--all caused, of course, by
global warming. In an article entitled ``UN Climate Change Panel Based
Claims On Student Dissertation and Magazine Article,'' the Telegraph
reported the following:
One of the sources quoted was a feature article published
in a popular magazine for climbers which was based on
anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they
were witnessing on the mountainsides around them. The other
was a dissertation written by a geography student, studying
for the equivalent of a master's degree at the University of
Berne in Switzerland that quoted interviews with mountain
guides in the Alps.
So that is the source they had. The article further reveals:
The IPCC report made use of 16 nonpeer reviewed WWF
reports. One claim, which stated that coral reefs near
mangrove forests contained up to 25 times more fish numbers
than those without mangroves nearby, quoted a feature article
on the WWF website. In fact, the data contained within the
WWF article originated from a paper published in 2004 in the
respected Journal Nature. In another example a WWF paper on
forest fires was used to illustrate the impact of reduced
rainfall in the Amazon rainforest, but the data was from
another Nature paper published in 1999.
On top of this, we find that the IPCC was exaggerating claims about
the Amazon. The report said that 40 percent of the Amazon rain forest
was endangered by global warming. But again, as we have seen, this was
taken from a study by the WWF--the World Wildlife Federation--and one
that had nothing to do with global warming. Even worse, it was written
by a green activist.
That is the statement they made--40 percent of the Amazon rain forest
was
[[Page S550]]
in danger. So again, we have the gold standard of climate research and
a body that was awarded the Nobel prize of 2007. How can the world's
preeminent climate body fall victim to such inaccuracy and, it must be
said, outright fraud? I am sure for many in this body this information
is shocking, but for me I am not at all surprised.
Five years ago, I sent a letter to Dr. Pachauri specifically raising
the many weaknesses in the IPCC's peer-review process, but Dr. Pachauri
dismissed my concerns. Here is how Reuters reported his response:
In the one-page letter, [Pachauri] denies the IPCC has an
alarmist bias and says ``I have a deep commitment to the
integrity and objectivity of the IPCC process.'' Pachauri's
main argument is that the IPCC comprises both scientists and
more than 130 governments who approve IPCC reports line by
line. That helps ensure fairness, he says.
Here is Dr. Pachauri defending it.
Given the significance of the reports, Dr. Pachauri should come clean
and respond directly to the numerous charges made against himself and
the IPCC. And given that Dr. Pachauri has testified before Congress,
including the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, we
should hear directly from him as soon as possible as to how he can
salvage the IPCC's vanishing credibility.
How did we get to this point? I have been documenting deceit of this
kind for several years now. But I must say that a great turning point
occurred just a few months ago, when thousands of e-mails from the
University of East Anglia's climatic research unit, or CRU, were leaked
to the media. The CRU is one of the world's most prestigious climate
research centers. The e-mails appear to show some of the world's
preeminent climate scientists manipulating data, violating information
disclosure laws by deleting e-mails, and blocking publication of
research contrary to their own. They published only the research that
would verify their positions interms of global warming, in other words.
This revelation sparked several investigations, including one by the
UK's Information Commissioner's Office. The office recently concluded
that the CRU broke the UK's Freedom of Information Act. However, as the
Times of London reported:
The Information Commissioner's Office decided that UEA
failed in its duties under the Act but said that it could not
prosecute those involved because the complaint was made too
late . . . The ICO is now seeking to change the law to allow
prosecutions if a complaint is made more than six months
after a breach.
It is a little late but none the less a good change to make. The
Times further reports on the details, noting:
In one e-mail, Professor Jones [former director of the CRU
who has now stepped down because of the scandal] asked a
colleague to delete e-mails relating to the 2007 report by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He also told a
colleague that he had persuaded the university authorities to
ignore information requests under the act from people linked
to a Web site run by climate sceptics.
Climate skeptics, so you understand the terminology that is used
here, those are people like me who have looked at this and realize the
science is cooked. I think most people agree with that now.
As we know, Climategate is just the beginning. Time magazine
reported--let's keep in mind, this is Time magazine; the same magazine
about a year ago that had a picture of the last polar bear standing on
the last ice cube saying: It is coming and you ought to be real worried
about it.
As we now know, Climategate was just the beginning.
Time magazine reported that `Glaciergate' is a ``black eye for the
IPCC and for the climate-science community as a whole.'' In the article
posted online from Thursday, January 21, 2010, Himalayan Melting: How a
Climate Panel Got It Wrong, Time reports:
The mistake is a black eye for the IPCC and for the
climate-science community as a whole. Climate scientists are
still dealing with the Climategate controversy, which
involved hacked e-mails from a major British climatology
center that cast doubt on the solidity of evidence for global
warming.
The Economist newspaper, which had accepted the IPCC climate
``consensus,'' essentially claimed that it had been duped by the IPCC.
Here's the Economist:
The idea that the Himalaya could lose its glaciers by
2035--glaciers which feed rivers across South and East Asia--
is a dramatic and apocalyptic one. After the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said such an
outcome was very likely in the assessment of the state of
climate science that it made in 2007, onlookers (including
this newspaper) repeated the claim with alarm. In fact, there
is no reason to believe it to be true. This is good news
(within limits) for Indian farmers--and bad news for the
IPCC.
The Economist finds that, ``This mixture of sloppiness, lack of
communication, and high-handedness gives the IPCC's critics a lot to
work with.''
Seth Borenstein with the Associated Press, a reporter whose
objectivity I have questioned at various times, asked the IPCC to
respond to Glaciergate. Borenstein reported in his January 20, 2010,
article, UN Climate Report Riddled with Errors on Glaciers:
``The credibility of the IPCC depends on the thoroughness
with which its procedures are adhered to,'' Yvo de Boer, head
of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, told The
Associated Press in an e-mail. ``The procedures have been
violated in this case. That must not be allowed to happen
again because the credibility of climate change policy can
only be based on credible science.''
Borenstein also quotes Roger Pielke, Jr.'s concerns with the
significance of the errors, writing, ``However, Colorado University
environmental science and policy professor Roger Pielke, Jr. said the
errors point to a `systematic breakdown in IPCC procedures,' and that
means there could be more mistakes.''
Further troubling is the revelation of several instances in which the
IPCC relies on nonpeer reviewed work, mainly from leftwing pressure
groups. As the Wall Street Journal reports in an article from January
18, ``Climate-Change Claim on Glaciers Under Fire'':
The citation of an environmental advocacy group as a source
within the IPCC report appears to be a rare, but not unique,
occurrence. That same chapter on Asian climate impacts also
cited work from the World Resources Institute, which
describes itself as an `environmental think tank.' Most of
the thousands of citations supporting the rest of the
voluminous IPCC report were from scientific journals.
Let me add also that Professor Bob Watson--first, Bob Watson was the
predecessor to Pachauri. He said:
It is concerning that these mistakes have appeared in the
IPCC report . . . Dr. Pachauri must take full responsibility
for that.
I think it is interesting to those of us who have been stuck in
Washington for the last 3 days because of the weather--it is a record;
we have not had anything like this, the snowfall and temperatures, in
the recorded history of Washington DC--that they are now talking about
starting a new agency under NOAA. That is the National Oceanographic
and Atmospheric Administration. That is all we need is one more
bureaucracy to talk about global warming.
I might add, today there is supposed to be an EPW hearing on global
warming, but it was canceled by the blizzard. A lot of things have been
happening recently, and I think it is very important that people
understand how serious this matter is.
I have to add one thing, since I think I have 6 minutes left, about
my daughter Molly. My wife and I have been married 50 years. We have 20
kids and grandkids, I say to my friend in the chair. Six of those were
up here because of a little adopted Ethiopian girl. My granddaughter
and her brothers were making a igloo. They were stuck here with nothing
else to do. If you want to see it, it is down at Third and
Independence. Someone took the sign off, but the sign said: ``Al Gore's
New Home.'' I thought I would throw that out.
One last thing, in winding this up, about how serious this is. It
became evident that the votes to pass the very expensive cap-and-trade
bill, the largest tax increase in the history of America, somewhere
between $300 and $400 billion a year--it would cost every taxpaying
family in my State of Oklahoma some $3,000 a year--the fact is, the
votes are not there, not even close. They may be up to 20 votes, but it
takes 60 to pass it. We know that.
When this happened, President Obama said: Fine. If Congress is not
going to pass this bill, I can do it administratively through an
endangerment finding of the Clean Air Act.
The Clean Air Act was passed many years ago. The Clean Air Act talks
about pollutants such as SOx, NOx, and
[[Page S551]]
mercury. If he can have an endangerment finding saying that
CO2 can be considered to be a pollutant, we can regulate it
and do it through regulation.
I personally asked in a public hearing, live on TV, Lisa Jackson,
Administrator of the EPA, I said: If you do an endangerment finding--
which they have now done, but this is before then--is it accurate to
say that is based on the science of the EIPC?
She said yes.
Now we have an endangerment finding based on science totally
discredited, on the IPCC. I have no doubt in my mind that once March
gets here and lawsuits start getting filed, the courts are going to
look at this and say: Wait a minute. An endangerment finding that is
going to totally change the United States of America is based on
science that has been refuted in the last few months.
This is very serious. It is something that could be very expensive
for America. I invite all my colleagues here, Democrats and
Republicans, to look and see what Climategate is all about, what
Amazongate is all about, what Glaciergate is all about. Cooked science
has come up with the conclusion we are now experiencing global warming,
and it is due to anthropogenic gases.
I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. HARKIN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Shaheen). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The Senator from Iowa is recognized.
Mr. HARKIN. I thank the Chair.
(The remarks of Mr. Harkin pertaining to the submission of S. Res.
416 are located in today's Record under ``Submitted Resolutions.'')
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Missouri is recognized.
Mr. BOND. I thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. I
believe there is a UC that the assistant majority leader wishes to
make.
____________________