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Revision as of 12:32, 6 February 2003 by MartinHarper (talk | contribs) (rm self link)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 by two United Nations organizations, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). It is led by government scientists, but also involves several hundred academic scientists and researchers. The IPCC monitors the available information about climate change and global warming and has published four major reports reviewing the latest climate science.
The IPCC was one of the forces behind the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Robert Watson headed the IPCC until being voted out in May 2002.
Publications
The IPC produces a report every two years, along with a policymakers' summary of each report.
Climate Change 1995
Climate Change 1995 was produced in 1996, and is the seminal report of the IPCC. The report attempts to conclusive evidence supporting the global warming theory. The IPCC also published a Policymakers’ Summary for makers of public policy. The summary represents a consensus of national representatives, and downplays doubts raised by individual scientific contributors.
Debate over Climate Change 1995
Politicians such as Bill Clinton and Al Gore have endorsed the report, saying that "the science is settled".
Dr. Frederick Seitz, president emeritus of Rockefeller University and past president of the National Academy of Sciences, has publicly denounced the IPCC report, writing "I have never witnessed a more disturbing corruption of the peer-review process than the events that led to this IPCC report."
A December 20, 1995, Reuters report quoted British scientist Keith Shine, one of IPCC's lead authors, discussing the Policymakers’ Summary. He said: "We produce a draft, and then the policymakers go through it line by line and change the way it is presented.... It's peculiar that they have the final say in what goes into a scientists' report."
The Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP) conducted a survey of IPCC scientific contributors and reviewers and found that about half did not support the Policymakers' Summary. Parallel surveys by the Gallup organization and even by Greenpeace International produced similar results.