E2 Round-up: UN warns again on emissions, Inhofe warns again on science, Energy Dept. IG warns on weatherization, and more

The United Nations is under attack from climate skeptics, but that hasn’t stopped it from continuing to issue warnings about modeling that predicts dangerous global warming.

A UN report released Tuesday looks at why various national emissions pledges won’t hold global temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius or less. That’s the level needed to prevent the most devastating effects of climate change, climate scientists say.

“Yearly greenhouse gas emissions should not be more than 40 and 48.3 gigatonnes of CO2-equivalent in 2020 and should peak between 2015 and 2021, according to new modeling released on Tuesday by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP),” notes this Reuters account of the report.

“Keeping within that range and cutting global emissions by between 48 percent and 72 percent between 2020 and 2050 will give the planet a 'medium' or 50-50 chance of staying within the 2 degree limit, said the report, which was based on modeling by nine research centers,” it adds. But the problem is that the world isn't on track to meet those goals, even if planned cuts are actually implemented, the study finds.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) has long derided global warming as a “hoax,” and Tuesday he ramped up allegations that climate scientists have basically cooked the books to make their case.

Inhofe issued a report that makes a series of allegations about researchers involved in the controversy over the hacked climate science emails.

“The scientists involved in the CRU controversy violated fundamental ethical principles governing taxpayer-funded research and, in some cases, may have violated federal laws,” states the report, which can be found here. The CRU is the Climatic Research Unit, a prominent research institute in the United Kingdom.

The university that houses the CRU has commissioned independent inquiries. But many scientists say the emails have done nothing to dent powerful evidence of human-induced warming.

The Obama administration has strongly promoted to deployment of climate-friendly energy and efficiency technologies as a way to create jobs.

But a report from the Energy Department’s inspector general finds that multi-billion dollar federal efforts to increase home weatherization have been slow to get off the ground, the New York Times reports.

Toyota is knee-deep in problems, but that hasn’t prevented the Prius hybrid from retaining its longstanding title as Consumer Reports’ top pick for environmentally-friendly cars, reports Bloomberg and other outlets. Toyota recently recalled 437,000 of the vehicles to fix a brake problem.