No longer able to ignore the scandal and its efforts to quell the furor failing, the United Nations has announced it will launch a probe into the release of more than a thousand emails from the world’s top scientists. The contents of the archive, illegally obtained and released on the Internet two weeks ago, have caused an uproar in the debate about manmade climate change.
Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), initially dismissed the event saying the scientists involved could not have influenced the IPCC’s work. He said last week, “The processes in the IPCC are so robust, so inclusive, that even if an author or two has a particular bias it is completely unlikely that bias will find its way into the IPCC report.”
We certainly don’t want to brush anything under the carpet.
~ Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, UN IPCCC on its investigation of Climategate
Today Pachauri reversed course and told BBC Radio that the UN will be conducting an investigation into the issues raised in recent weeks. “We certainly are going to take a look at the whole lot of it and then are going to take a position on it,” he said. “We certainly don’t want to brush anything under the carpet. This is a serious issue and we will certainly look into it in detail.”
Questions immediately arose about who will conduct the investigation and what the scope will include. As was seen in a poll released yesterday, Americans do not believe the UN is an honest broker in climate change discussions so an internal investigation is unlikely to do much to quiet dissent.
- Climategate - Complete coverage from Examiner.com
- Climate Change Examiner Facebook Page
- Climate Change Examiner on Twitter
The launch of a UN investigation is the third announced in the last five days. On Sunday, Penn State University announced it would conduct an investigation into Dr. Michael Mann and his role in the Climategate scandal. Mann in particular seemed concerned with controlling and preventing the publication of any papers that disagreed with the manmade climate change theory.
Britain’s University of East Anglia (UEA) which houses the Climate Research Unit (CRU) where the emails originated from has also announced its own investigation. The head of the CRU, Phil Jones, has stepped aside pending the results of the inquiry. Jones is arguably the central figure in the scandal having sent many emails that have fueled skeptics’ fires.
In terms of the IPCC, Jones commented that he wanted to prevent papers written by dissenters from being included in IPCC reports. “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report,” Jones wrote to Mann. “Kevin and I will keep them out somehow -- even if we have to redefine what the peer- review literature is!”
Comments
The Climategate emails underscore the need for the United States to convene its own objective, transparent Climate Truth Commission. The USA must quit outsourcing its climate science to the United Nations. It defies common sense that the UN is both the judge (IPCC) and an advocate (Kyoto Protocol). Moreover, the IPCC is only tasked to evaluate the risk of climate change caused by human activity. Thus, they have ignored the role of Mother Nature in climate change!
-- Robert Moen, www.energyplanUSA.com
Does anyone beLIEve the UN can investigate itself? Did they investigate the rapes of thousands by their own?
Did they EVER punish anyone in the Oil for Food scandal?
The UN is a useless communist socialist bunch of corruptocrats.
I hope that somebody will hold the UN's feet to the fire demanding that Dr. Pachauri not be allowed to participate in any way in the e-mail and falsification probe. His job depends on AGW.
Whatever is coming out is very important however, what needs to come out is the fact that Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant and that the basis for this new industrial complex and international treaty that will alter life on earth in a way that people cannot fathom, for the worse must be read by the entire world and until that happens, it should not be allowed to pass. I did several interview on climate and weather and was shocked at what I learned. I used to be a person who was sold on global warming because I blindly accepted the story as being true. If any of you want to learn the science, feel free to visit me at:
www.itsrainmakingtime.com
I am doing a few more segments over the next month and will continue to be open to learning from people all over the world.
Best Regards,
Kim Greenhouse
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!