Climate Change: Failures of Global Warming Probes 'Let Down Public'

source: express.co.uk
by: John Ingham

Public inquiries into the Climategate scandal have failed to restore confidence in the science behind global warming, a report claimed yesterday.

It branded as flawed the three inquiries into the leaking of e-mails by scientists at East Anglia university’s world-leading Climate Research Unit.

And it called for independent inquiries into the ethos of climate research and the science itself.

Yesterday’s report for Lord Lawson’s Global Warming Policy Foundation – a climate change sceptic think-tank – said: “The inquiries avoided key questions and failed to probe some of the most serious allegations.”

Climategate leaks appeared to show scientists manipulating data to strengthen the case for manmade climate change, obstructing freedom of information requests and pressuring academic journals to ignore critical studies.

Climategate was particularly damaging as the CRU is at the heart of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose reports are shaping the world’s response to the issue.

The CRU scientists have been cleared of wrongdoing by three independent inquiries, by the Commons Science and Technology committee and two for the University of East Anglia, led by Sir Muir Russell and another by Lord Oxburgh and the Royal Society.

But yesterday’s report by sceptic Andrew Montfort said: “Despite the seriousness of the matters revealed in the Climategate e-mails, the inquiries into the conduct and integrity of scientists at the CRU were rushed, cursory and largely unpersuasive.”

He said terms of reference were “vague or non-existent” and climate sceptics were under-repre­sented on the inquiry panels. He added: “None of the inquiries have performed their work in a way that is likely to restore confidence in the work of the CRU.”

His report was backed by former Cabinet Secretary Lord Turnbull who said: “All three reports have serious flaws.” He said CRU scientists were treated “with kid gloves” while climate sceptics were “disparaged and denied adequate opportunity to put their case”.

He added: “The public has been fed a particular variant of the climate change story with many of the caveats stripped out. There is a much richer but more complex story to be told which recognises there are strong natural variations upon which manmade emissions are superimposed.” The UEA said the Lord Lawson report “offers nothing new”.

A spokesman said: “Three independent reviews have found in favour of the integrity and honesty of the scientists in the Climatic Research Unit and there is an overwhelming scientific ­consensus that the world is warming and that humankind is having a marked effect on the rate of warming.

“CRU’s research points to conclusions on global warming which are replicated by separate data sets being analysed by independent researchers in other parts of the world. CRU’s published outputs have been subject to expert peer review for more than three decades and remain open to scrutiny by anyone.”