Climategate used by US Republicans to end IPCC funding
Funding to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) from the United States could be cut following a vote in Washington where Republicans cited “climategate” to argue the £1.3 million grant should be stopped.
The IPCC was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 jointly with Al Gore, for its work analyzing the huge body of peer review science to inform policy decisions about climate change.
However, the organization has become a focus of attack from climate sceptic Republicans, the Tea Party, free market think tanks and oil giants including Koch Industries.
Republicans in the House of Representatives won the vote on Saturday with 244 to 179 in favour of an amendment. The bill will have to be passed by the Senate before the cash is stopped.
The amendment was proposed by Blaine Luetkemeyer, who is quoted by the Climate Science Watch website referencing “climategate” as a reason to stop funding.
He said: “Scientists manipulated climate data, suppressed legitimate arguments in peer-reviewed journals, and researchers were asked to destroy emails, so that a small number of climate alarmists could continue to advance their environmental agenda.”
He added: “The IPCC is an entity that is fraught with waste and fraud, and engaged in dubious science, which is the last thing hard-working American taxpayers should be paying for.”
Henry Waxman, a democrat, spoke against the cuts. He said: “The US contributes only $2.3 million to the IPCC. Our $2.3 million [£1.31 million] contribution leverages a global science assessment with global outreach and global technical input – a process we could not carry out alone and one that could come to a halt without U.S. support.
“Its work on climate change is unparallelled, and its four assessment reports to date have brought together thousands of scientists around the world, in disciplines ranging from atmospheric sciences, to forest ecology, to economics, to provide objective and policy-neutral information.”
He added: “The panel has attracted hundreds of the best U.S. scientists. In fact, a majority of the research that’s reviewed is undertaken in U.S. institutions.”
Chris Field, a Stanford scientist who heads an IPCC working group, is quoted by the Guardian stating: “It’s a real tragedy that the issue is so poorly understood that it doesn’t have the support I think it deserves given how important it is.”
The Republicans voted for cuts totaling £38 billion including £3 billion from the Environment Protection Agency. This would mean the loss of $8.4m in funds to the EPA’s greenhouse gas registry and a ban on the agency using money to enforce emission limits on power stations and cement makers.
The cuts have been welcomed among climate sceptics, with a report at attack-site Climate Depot headlined “another victory for science!” The UK based Global Warming Policy Foundation also credits the decision to ” climategate fallout“.
“Climategate” was the title used for the media frenzy which followed the hacking and release of emails by scientists at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Five committees in the UK and US have failed to find any evidence that the content of the messages in any way undermines the scientific evidence of climate change.
Read the Carbon Brief’s profile of Climategate here.