UN lays out plans for outside review of IPCC

As expected, the United Nations today announced that an outside review of the embattled UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be conducted by a scientific body called the InterAcademy Council.

The Council, based in the Netherlands, is an umbrella group for national science academies in various nations, including the U.S.

Climate skeptics – including several Capitol Hill lawmakers – have pounced on errors in the IPCC’s massive 2007 report on global warming. But the IPCC defended its work even as it announced the new review.

“The IPCC stands firmly behind the rigor and reliability of its Fourth Assessment Report from 2007, but we recognize that we can improve. We have listened and learned from our critics, and we intend to take every action we can to ensure that our reports are as robust as possible,” said IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri in a prepared statement.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Pachauri requested the review.

The review will “examine every aspect of how the IPCC’s reports are prepared, including the use of non-peer reviewed literature and the reflection of diverse viewpoints. The review will also examine institutional aspects, including management functions as well as the panel’s procedures for communicating its findings with the public,” the UN said.