The last time an IPCC chair position was up for grabs was in 2001, when things were not so politicized and aggressive, and there was not so much money and power on the table. Lobbying for this role is running hot and Tony Thomas compares the five men who are standing for this role. The position will be decided by October 8, and the new chairman will presumably be influential, or at least very visible, in Paris at the UNFCCC in early December. In the elections, there is one vote per country, so it is not so much about scientific credibility (and never was, think of Pachauri) but more about the powerful voting blocks that may form with small developing nations. Given that the new chairman will be in the media frequently and soon, this post is about being prepared. No matter who wins, I think the IPCC is unsaveable and needs to be shut down or deprived of funding as soon as possible. — Jo
Guest Post by Tony Thomas
Five candidates have put up their hand to become chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from October 8.
They are Jean-Pascal van Ypersele (Belgium), Hoesung Lee (Korea), Thomas Stocker (Switzerland), Chris Field (USA) and Nebojsa Nakicenovic (Austria).
The elections will be at the meeting of the IPCC in Dubrovnic, Croatia, from October 5-8. Further nominations are unlikely but it is possible that ‘wild card’ candidates could be nominated at the meeting itself, with a vote 24 hours later.
Each of the 195 nation-state members of the IPCC have an equal vote by secret ballot. The vote of Vanuatu (pop 250,000) carries the same clout as the USA’s. This means candidates, and their national backers, will be courting the myriad small states for votes, using hard and soft diplomacy as occurred in 2001.
A win requires a simple majority. If no majority occurs on the first voting round, the top two candidates are put to a run-off vote.
The chair has been vacant since February when Dr Rajenda Pachauri, 75, resigned abruptly after a 29-year-old female analyst at his TERI thinktank in Delhi filed a sexual harassment complaint against him. Pachauri has since been on bail after Delhi police charged him with molestation, stalking, sexual harassment and criminal intimidation. The IPCC then appointed Vice-Chair Ismail Elgizouli (Sudan) as acting chair until October 8.
The IPCC chair position and other top roles carry no salary but give global prominence and status. Leaders’ home governments or institutions pick up the tab.
Van Ypersele and Hoesung Lee are two of the three current vice-chairs (Elgizouli is the third). Stocker is co-chair of Working Group 1 (the science); and Field is co-chair of Working Group 2 (Impacts and Adaptation). If the IPCC operated logically, the showdown would be a contest between the Swiss-backed and US-backed candidates, whose science credentials are overwhelming.
The Candidates
Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Austria, Prof of Energy Economics
Austria’s Nakicenovic is the least-known quantity. He has had IPCC roles for 25 years since the first IPCC report, mainly on energy chapters. In the latest 5th report, he was a Lead Author of Chapter 5 (Drivers, Trends and Mitigation) in WG3 (Mitigation).
He is Deputy Director General/Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and former Professor of Energy Economics at the Vienna University of Technology. He has authored more than 300 papers.
Van Ypersele, Belgium, Climate models & Antarctic sea ice
Van Ypersele, 58, is profiled at Quadrant Magazine. In a futuristic tract van Ypersele wrote for Greenpeace in 2004, he predicted that in 2039, King William V of Great Britain (i.e. today’s Prince William), will die at age 57 from the West Nile virus as a result of the planet’s IPCC-predicted global warming.
He’s a physics PhD whose research was on the effect of global warming on Antarctic sea ice – an interesting topic, as Antarctic sea ice is at a record extent for the satellite era. (Ypersele tweeted last October 7: “Scientists explain why record-high Antarctic sea ice doesn’t mean global warming isn’t happening”). He later specialised in climate modelling. He was a lead author for the third IPCC report in 2001, and for the fourth report (2007) chaired plenaries for the three Working Groups.
Dr. Hoesung Lee, Korea, Economics
Dr. Hoesung Lee is the only Asian candidate and hence has some cachet with the anti-West blocs in the UN. The absence of a third-world candidate so far is surprising. Hoesung Lee earned his PhD in economics from Rutgers University, USA. He’s an energy specialist and has been prominent on many heavyweight Korean boards, including Hyundai, and in Korean government advisory roles. He’s been a prominent IPCC author since the third report in 2001. He speaks fluent English although Lee’s style is rather bland.
Dr Thomas Stocker — Swiss, Climate models & Ice cores
Stocker is making a sophisticated bid for the chair and has created a cool “Thomas Stocker for IPCC Chair” website.
One section, headed “Future of the IPCC”, sets out his goals, viz:
- Enhancing the engagement of experts from all regions will result in more comprehensive assessments.
- Young scientists and experts in all IPCC teams will contribute new perspectives.
- Rigorous procedures are the foundation of more timely and frequent information to policymakers.
- Intensified outreach by the IPCC in regions most impacted by climate change will raise global awareness and advance solutions.
Stocker’s platform clearly reaches out to nondescript IPCC members for votes. The IPCC already practises affirmative action for third-world and female recruits: Stocker seems to be adding “youthfulness” to the selection process.
He writes, “As Chair of the IPCC, I will [he means ‘would’] exercise thoughtful and innovative leadership and carefully listen to alternative views and complementary ideas, with a firm commitment to consensus…
“As Chair of the IPCC, I will [would] ensure unequivocal, clear and understandable communication that is fully rooted in the rigorous scientific assessment and that incorporates information about uncertainties in an open and transparent way.”
He also claims to have his force-multiplier in the form of support from “a Technical Support Unit and a team of international experts at the University of Bern” – something other candidates may not be able to compete with. He is Professor of Climate and Environmental Physics there.
Stocker, Zurich-born, did his PhD in Natural Sciences at ETH Zurich. His research is largely climate models and ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica. He has total faith in the IPCC’s “Atlas of Regional Climate Change Projections” for plotting changes in temperature and precipitation in all regions of the world for four emissions scenarios and for several time horizons between now and 2100 – “an incredible achievement”, he said.
In fact, the disclaimer to the Atlas says its output is not ‘forecasts’ but only projections conditional on climate forcing assumptions, shortcomings of models and ‘internal variability’ (p.1313).
Stocker is big on the ‘cumulative carbon budget’ concept for limiting warming risks, although any such budget relies on the yet-unquantified linkage between CO2 and temperature. At a Paris seminar on July 7, he said the ‘business as usual’ climate threat would stymie the UN’s sustainable development goals.
He attracted some controversy in late 2012 because of a letter he signed to lead authors in early 2010, after Climategate in 2009. He initially demanded it be kept secret, with a threat to the UK that publication could put IPCC/UK working arrangements at risk.
When disclosed, the secret IPCC letter was fairly anodyne but included a sentence, “The IPCC Chair, Vice-Chairs and Co-Chairs are working on a strategy to ensure that work on the AR5 is as effective as possible whilst at the same time emphasizing the robustness of the AR4 findings.”
This was viewed by sceptics as acknowledgement that on-going IPCC work was not open-minded but defensive of AR4. Stocker’s rival, Chris Field, is blunt about AR4’s shortcomings (see below).
Even in late 2013 and after a 16-year halt to warming, Stocker was still claiming the IPCC’s ‘simple key messages’ were:
- “We know it’s happening
- “We know who’s responsible” and
- “We have a choice.”
He includes assertions about “the [assumed] near-linear relationship between cumulative carbon emissions and peak warming in the 21st century, the fact that with every 10 years of CO2 emissions rising at the current rate, about 0.5°C of climate target is being lost.” Again, this fails to mention the 18-year warming halt in the face of very significant CO2 emissions increases.
Stocker in 2013 said climate trends required at least 30 year period, although the original 1990s warming scare was based on barely a decade of warming. He also claimed, improbably, that “the projections of the global mean temperature were extremely good already back in 1990”. (The IPCC FAR 1990 predictions were wrong, below even the lowest possible estimate.)
Stocker received an interesting email from East Anglia CRU’s Phil Jones [2440 in the Climategate series]: “I’ve been told that IPCC is above national FOI Acts. One way to cover yourself and all those working in AR5 would be to delete all emails at the end of the process. Hard to do, as not everybody will remember to do it.” Instead of expressing abhorrence at such tactics, and upholding the IPCC’s professed devotion to transparency, Stocker responded warmly that allowing access to climate data under laws prescribing ‘open access to environmental data’ would be a ‘perversion’. (This contrasts with the line of his competitor Field, “I think that having an IPCC that is visible, transparent and has high quality leadership is going to be an important part of making sure that the science isn’t marginalised in any country… I do think there are lot of was to be more open and more ambitious in making the process inclusive and making the process transparent.” )
For some reason Stocker has included on his “Stocker for IPCC Chair” website artwork by “renowned graphics” artist Claude Kuhn, showing someone with his head nearly underwater as a result of sea level rises.
Chris Field — USA, Biologist
Biologist Chris Field is the candidate endorsed by the US Department of State, and is endorsed by White House science czar John P. Holdren as a ‘superb candidate’. Field has his own “Candidate for Chairman” website –- not as cool as Stocker’s — where he says he has experience in all three IPCC working groups.
He says, “I am a scientist of the highest caliber. I have tackled difficult and important research challenges, publishing over 300 scientific papers that have been cited over 50,000 times.”
Field is the founding director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology and Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies at Stanford University. His research involves field and laboratory studies of impacts of climate change, from the molecular to the global scale. He was prominent in writing the IPCC Special Report on “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation” (2012). He’s won the Max Planck Research Award, the Heinz Award, and the Roger Revelle Medal.
He supports “new levels of integrity, relevance, and clarity in IPCC’s definitive assessments of knowledge on climate change.” He also wants more user-friendly and multi-media graphic-designed styles to improve IPCC communication: “For future reports, the IPCC has compelling opportunities for enhancing the clarity of its products. Options include enhanced editing, use of technology, and effective structuring of reports. My goal is to help authors see the reports through the eyes of users.”
Field’s efforts towards communicating WG2 findings in AR5 extended to raising a million dollars personally for author travel, training, and outreach to the public.
Talking about IPCC prose, Field says “It’s like trying to write poetry, but with hundreds of people shouting suggestions in different languages. So it’s a real challenge, but I think it’s the most important challenge we face.”
In one extraordinary argument, Field says the IPCC should start with the summary for policy makers and work back from there to the science chapters:
“My feeling is that we should really start with the synthesis report, and figure out how to construct working group reports that feed into that in the most useful, integrated way. One of the questions – it’s been open for discussion in past reports – is, well, do you know what the questions are for the synthesis report until you’ve done the working group reports? And I think that now we have so much knowledge, and so much sophistication about the climate change issue, and, in fact, we can go the direction of designing a synthesis report, figuring out what angles we’re going to take, what are the question that are going to be explored, and then customising the working group reports so that they contribute to that set of goals in the most effective way.”
It is interesting that Field foresees IPCC outputs continuing indefinitely, after a flurry of third-party views that perhaps the IPCC reached its use-by date with its 5th report of 2013. Field elaborated: “I’m not sure the IPCC has decided to do big assessment reports. They’ve decided to keep the basic structure of the three working groups, with an increased focus on the synthesis report and with a series of special reports.”
He hints at improving on the lamentable PR snafus of his predecessor Pachauri, and stresses that he would manage well the delicate relationships between the chair and the IPCC 195-country panel of governments which calls the final shots on IPCC output. “I understand…the many options for phrasing any one finding,” he says, referring to the all-important synthesis reports crafted by the governments. The crafting can involve all-night wranglings about what to say and what to leave out – such as the 5th report’s admission that 111 of 114 models are running too hot.
In a nice back-hander at Pachauri, Field says “In AR5 we were a lot more attentive to quality control than we were in the AR4”.
His interviewer Roz Pidcock in Paris July 8 seemed comically unaware the criminal charges against Pachauri. She asked Field specifically to detail Pachauri’s achievements as chair. Field ducks and bobs and merely says that every IPCC leader and participant is credit-worthy.
On scientists as advocates, he says (without addressing the objectivity/credibility problem): “Well, most scientists are parents, they’re teachers, they’re grandparents, they’re members of churches. The fact that someone has a PhD behind their name doesn’t mean that’s all they are. So when I speak as a representative of the IPCC, I tell the IPCC’s story. If I speak as a parent, I speak from my personal experience and my aspirations for my own children.”
On expressing his personal views if elected IPCC chair: “It would be irresponsible to ignore the strong identification that whenever I appear as IPCC chair, I will be identified as such, rather than as the parent of two lovely children.”
He is a fan of IPCC special ad hoc reports, and mentions oceans as a possible topic: “Oceans are kind of a new topic, in the IPCC, and one that’s richly interdisciplinary.” Odd that after 30 years climate work, he still sees oceans (71% of the earth’s surface) as ‘a new topic’. Field also mentions potential topics such as food security and desertification, neither of which are running the IPCC’s way.
He says increasing the engagement in the IPCC of “regional diversity, gender diversity, diversity of seniority” are “all really really important.” Such statements nullify the oft-repeated mantra that the IPCC comprises the world’s finest cohort of climate scientists. Like Stocker, he seems to be appealing now to the youth vote.
IPCC — other elections, candidates and voting
A large number of other IPCC positions are up for grabs. Candidates for slots on the IPCC governing Bureau are Thelma Krug (Brazil), Edvin Aldrian (Indonesia), Serhat Sensov (Turkey), Gregory Flato (Canada), Sergev Semenov (Russia), Carlo Carraro (Italy), Amjad Abdulla (Maldives, pop 350,000 ), and Cheik Mbow (Senegal). Other candidates for non-specific Bureau slots are Fahmuddin Agus (Indonesia), Peter Adek Omeny (Kenya) and Fatma Betui Bayguyen (Turkey). Australia, despite its prominence among IPCC authors, fields no candidate.
Voting for the routine Bureau positions involves quotas. IPCC members are arranged into blocs as follows: Africa, 54 countries with 7 guaranteed positions on the 33-member Bureau; Asia (32 countries, 6 positions); South America (12, 4); North/Central America (23, 4); SW Pacific (22 including Australia, 4); and Europe (52, 8). Note that USA and Canada have no more seats than the Australasia/SEA axis.
Contrary to many people’s understanding, the Paris climate talks in December are under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), not the IPCC. The IPCC is a participant and the new IPCC chair will have a prominent role.
Abbreviations: WG2: Working Group 2. WG1: Working Group 1.
I guess not being ( almost ) refused visas for the next chairman could be a good start….. 😉
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If 30,000 bona fide scientists signed the Oregon Petition, why didn’t they parlay the AAAS membership that comes with their Science subscriptions into the electon of someone other than Marcia McNutt to the presidency of the world’s largest general scienctific society, whence she is about to segue into being NAS President as well ?
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How come Tim ‘The Predictable’ Flannery isn’t on the list?
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…Because he is “too Flannery” even for the IPCC! 😀
…There’s that Leftist bingo again!
=> “regional diversity”
=> “gender diversity”
=> “diversity of seniority”
What the flying fire truck does “gender diversity” have anything to do with the climate?
(The last excuse I heard regarding Climate Change and gender is that the rise in temp will make women get “in heat” and thus, will cause more to become single mothers. So we must give women’s groups (Feminists) more money under the banner of “gender budgeting”…Seriously, they don’t even hide they’re scammers any more! Its the callous audacity of which they speak that is most concerning! Its incoherent nonsense!)
Look at this strategically…
(1) US Govt
=> Left-leaning Administration. (Democrats)
(2) US State Department
=> Filled with Obama appointees.
==> John Kerry => Secretary of State => Endorsed Obama for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.
==> Tony Blinken => Deputy Secretary => Former Deputy National Security Advisor for Obama.
==> Heather Higginbottom => Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources => Served as Policy Director of the Obama for America campaign.
(3) John Holdren => White House science czar
==> Known supporter of Democrats.
==> Advises for Obama.
==> Advised for President Bill Clinton. (As one of the science advisors from 1994 to 2001).
==> His academic background focuses on the causes and consequences of global environmental change, population control and energy technologies and policies.
My point?
* A State Dept with Leftists in leadership and management positions. (Who were appointed by a Leftist Govt).
* A science czar who has a history of advising for Leftist Govts and is a known supporter of Left-leaning party.
* Both endorse a Leftist-speaking, climate-change-supporting biologist for the leadership of the IPCC.
* …Which itself is pushing a Leftist issue that is Climate Change for its own existence.
So Lefties in power and decision-making positions endorse other Lefties for the leadership position in an international organisation that promote a modern Leftist issue.
(Which the Right don’t agree with, and the general public don’t care about.)
…All on the American taxpayer!
The difference between these guys and Flannery is that we got Flannery out of the taxpayer’s trough and he is now forced to pander to the public for money. (Crowd-funding).
They say Australia is the “lucky country”. No kidding! …We didn’t just dodged a bullet, but evaded a barrage of BS! (While USA is neck-deep in debt-drowning nonsense! Until the next Election.)
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Well, we’re not that far removed or immune to following in the footsteps of the US/Europe. The welfare society (or push for such) is as strong in Australia as anywhere in the world.
Not a day passes by when I don’t read in the news of another group demanding taxpayer money for some ‘major’ problem that ‘only’ government (taxpayer) money can solve.
The latest I read was a demand for money to prevent the demise of Kookaburras, et al, the former which seem to be laughing at such suggestions every morning and evening in our neck of the woods.
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footsteps of us/eu: kindly see https://balance1010.wordpress.com/2015/07/21/their-plot-to-create-the-one-world-government/
regards from usa
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John Holdren – advocate of all sorts of bizarre stuff, including planetary govt and forced sterilizations to control population …..
Quotes below from a book he co-authored – “Eco-Science”
http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/
Sterilizing humans through adding drugs to the water as long as it doesn’t harm animals , but humans are OK to control :
“Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock. “
Advocating a global ( Socialist ) govt :
“Perhaps those agencies, combined with UNEP and the United Nations population agencies, might eventually be developed into a Planetary Regime—sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment. Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as international implications exist. Thus the Regime could have the power to control pollution not only in the atmosphere and oceans, but also in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes that cross international boundaries or that discharge into the oceans. The Regime might also be a logical central agency for regulating all international trade, perhaps including assistance from DCs to LDCs, and including all food on the international market.
The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries’ shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.”
Scary…..
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Surely His Royal Highness Prince Charles should be Emperor of the UN.
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Emperior Crapaticus
Sort of has the right smell to it …
00
Do you think our Kev may have a chance. I’d love him to get that job. Judging by his history making speeches at the UN the audience would dwindle to less than a dozen in a few weeks!!!
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I see a bunch of liars lining up for the big prize. It’s a case of having five dishonest people and having to choose one.
The better-known candidates all claim that human activity caused the warming (non-existent for the last 18 years) but none have a shred of evidence. The reason is simple – the IPCC has never had the evidence to support its claims about a human influence on climate.
The IPCC’s charter directs it to investigate the risk of any human influence and after 1995 it was directed to support the UNFCCC, so saying that a human influence was negligible and only localised due to UHI and land-use changes would be suicide for the organisation.
It’s all a house of cards built on the bullying and alarmist publicity of the UNFCCC.
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A great clamorous Rush for the “prestige” and relevance.Its all about me! Pathetic fools.
11
Ironic where the election is being held. Consider that this is the filming location (since season 2) for King’s Landing, home of the Iron Throne of Westeros, the position which all the leaders covet:
http://www.kingslandingdubrovnik.com/
Gorgeous spot – I have walked the wall myself. I imagine the intrigue involved in the election would even challenge the like of Varys and Tyrion.
20
Further irony when you consider the sub-title to Game of Thrones is “A song of ice and fire.”
10
Actually thinking on it some more… things didn’t end well for the character who kept predicting the impending cooling in Game of Thrones.
00
The Belgium, Swiss and USA candidates would be the worst for all purpose particular the USA candidate who is beholden to the socialists in the Obama camp. The Belgian has made some idiotic comments about climate. It looks like the Korea might be the best as he has had experience with private enterprise, eg on the board of Hydundai (which started off as a cement company before going into ship and car building, and appears to understand economics but then the Korean head of the UN has been captured by the socialist alarmist (but luckily South Korea is more pragmatic and operates some of the best and safest Nuclear reactors in the world).
[snip] On the other hand the Austrian school of economics should be studied by more world leaders, finance ministers and government treasurers. If he follows that line of economics he could have a positive influence.
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The snip continued the name of a certain gentleman with a moustache who was a socialistic artist and came from Austria. There was no reference that anyone was like him just that he came from Austria.
00
So two economists, a Natural Science PhD, a Biologist none of them actually anything like Meteorologists. The IPCC was setup by the World Meteorological society, clearly to coordinate action between governments on issues of meteorology. The only one who has anything like the hard science qualifications is Ypersaly, a Belgian physicist apparently but one who appears to be a few sandwiches short of a picnic, kangaroos in the back paddock or two coupons short of a toaster. Still they cannot be worse than the 27 year rule of railway engineer Pachauri who travelled 360,000km per year lecturing on the evils of air travel. Can they?
Shut down this silly, pointless, fantasy IPCC. The damage it has done is immense. The good it has done is zero.
As for the UN Framework group run by the daughter and sister of ex Presidents of Costa Rica, a woman who openly wants to overthrow world governments for a communist model based on China, none of this has anything to do with climate. Australia should not attend Paris. It is not even the IPCC. The Green vote in Australia is 14%, but it is totally aligned with Labor anyway, so why not stop people attending the Paris commune on government or local government salaries? Make a stand against Climate insanity.
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Trying to understand this “physicist”. Anyone who believes that mankind has increased CO2 above 4% is in denial of simple physics, so it is a puzzle.
“I was as much interested by human issues and development issues than by scientific issues such as astronomy and physics..I was about to direct my career towards astrophysics I decided .. to specialise myself on climate change instead.
..my first degree was obtained doing a thesis on the effect of CO2 on global climate with .. very simplified climate models. Then I specialised myself in the study of sea ice and the ocean circulation around Antarctica, and went to the US .. and did my PhD thesis on the effect of CO2 warming on sea ice and ocean circulation around Antarctica”
So he is an admitted activist who has built his entire career on CO2 drive Climate Change rather than physics. So any suggestion that CO2 is not the reason for Global Warming is a denial of his life’s work.
He needs to examine whether the CO2 in the air is from ancient fossil fuels in the first place. It isn’t. So whether CO2 produces any warming at all is quite irrelevant. There is nothing governments can do about CO2. Henry’s law controls CO2 levels. This man is a much a physicist as Tim Flannery is Australia’s leading Climate Scientist.
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As Jo said the IPCC should be deprived of funds and shut down, but this won’t happen for a short while, a couple of years at least.
The five candidates are aliens, so they won’t be getting my vote.
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If only we got to vote, but that IS the point really isn’t it?
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Yes its like Australian politics – you never get to see who makes the decision of which candidates stand in federal and state elections, but surprise surprise, the same agenda seems to constantly lurch forward….its completely beyond coincidence…..
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It should be explained to whatever reptile that gets the position that “up for grabs” isn’t a literal description of what’s on the table….on or off. 😉
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Why bother with a real person when it is obvious that the IPCC has access to the expertize to computer model the required correct ‘person’.
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Are we talking A.I. computer development or A.I. the result of a jerk that develops the ultimate vapid model?
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Not just vapid but a whole new paradigm in virtualized vapidity unseen until now. With new and upgraded positive feedback parsing, improvements to the lexiconic library of semantic sophistry, the passing of the future returns here, now!
It heralds an open era of closing yesterday’s failures whilst enabling tomorrow’s advances in closely tied circumlocution argumentation. So embrace of de-yesterdaying of tomorrow today! With the exciting possibilities super-vapid technology.
Please note all source code is proprietary software, and property of the UN and and subject to NSA/EU/Chinese top-secret regulations.
61
Use as directed …
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And the carbon foot print of this meeting, prior horse trading, and what ever — will be what?
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Where’s Kevin Rudd? The IPCC needs a Moral High Groundist for when the seas rise, shirley?
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A bit like making a fox the moral guardian of the chook house isnt it?…and please dont call me Shirley….. 🙂
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I was looking for that comment, glad someone already made it.
Kevin07 is busy at Harvard working for the ChiComms to make “a new type of great power relationship” between Washington and Beijing.
At the moment it all sounds too vague to be Orwellian. But make no mistake, China asked for it and Kevin will deliver.
10
Onya Kev! That relevance thing again.
00
Actually, I’m available, and I could do with a part-time job to supplement my pension.
101
And my name is pretty easy to spell.
50
What’s so hard about Nebojsa Nakicenovic? (Balkan joke, sorry!).
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I’m not balkin’ at it, just as I didn’t with Milutin Malenkovic.
50
It is interesting that Climate Change has become a really hot topic, in the Pacific, over the past three or four months.
This is aided and abetted of course, by several severe weather events. But these were not at all unusual for the region, for this time of year, but are now caused by climate change, for some reason.
The Chinese have been very active in providing assistance to various Pacific nations, for several years, and that is probably just normal geopolitics. But what is different, is the “sudden” interest shown by South Korea, and for some reason, the European Union (as a bloc), in also “providing assistance” to Pacific Nations.
The Pacific represents between 17 and 20 votes (depending how Dependencies are viewed), and at least 15 of those would be vary grateful for promises of development grants, or infrastructure investments.
I am not going to pick a winner – I have been around too long to do that. But if you are making predictions, you need to take this into account.
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That might be a response to cyclone Raquel, east of the Solomon Islands, which was declared a cyclone by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, when the estimated central surface pressure dropped to 998Hpa!
More frequent and more severe cyclones!
We had an east coast low south of Victoria a few days ago which brought rain to Victoria and snow to southern Queensland. It had an estimated central pressure of 990 Hpa (not a cyclone).
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Wouldn’t that be extreme irony Rereke, a Chinese candidate. Geopolitics being the board game that it is.
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China does not have a nominee with their name in the hat.
But it is not beyond the realms of possibility for China to support the South Korean Candidate in return for some diplomatic neutrality over issues regarding the ownership of various Islands.
Besides, China does not really want to be involved at all with the IPCC, or any future commitments regarding a reduction of emissions. They have loads of coal, and lots of rare earths that the West needs. They write their own script.
30
The more fanatical they are the less credibility their fanatical ravings of these academics lunes will have with the public.
The more sane, sober and evidence based (i.e. sceptical) the less they will do.
There is an argument that a certain percentage of academics will always be lunes – and it is better to focus their energies on something like global warming where governments rightly just string them along year after year …
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The trouble is that lunes tend to have a plethora of attendant trolls. They seem to be attracted by the sweet smell of decay …
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Reversing the null hypothesis – a much favoured tactic, since it avoids answering any direct questions on empirical evidence
Well, here’s an hypothesis:
Michael Jackson was the second coming. Now you prove he wasn’t
[See how easy it is to do]
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Here is proof Michael Jackson was first …
20
Impressive list. Yes sir.
Van Ypersele: “in 2039, King William V of Great Britain (i.e. today’s Prince William), will die at age 57 from the West Nile virus as a result of the planet’s IPCC-predicted global warming.”
. . .
Though it is hard to beat a fool-proof prediction like this, a dark horse to consider, Sir Bob Geldof:
“Bob Geldof has claimed that the Earth as we know it could end by 2030 thanks to the ravages of climate change.
We may not get to 2030.”
. . .
If only the next 3 weeks winning lotto numbers were also included as evidence of their numerical predictive abilities.
I could easily spend a billion before the predicted climate apocalypse, confident in their soothsaying abilities.
If only …
40
Bob Geldof was the first Kim Kardashian. Apart from one good piece of music he is epitomises publicity porn in the service of his own deification.
60
Interesting comparison, he is also a huge ass that real people ignore….
40
Hmmm…George W. Bush came to power and effectively got rid of a charismatic scientist riding a wave of sci-pol legitimacy by managing to link the ozone treaty push to one shred of empirical evidence — a dip in the ozone readings in the Antarctic spring — thereby ensuring, indeed fast-tracking, the triumph in 1987. Patchy replacing Watson was a deeply political decision that placed the IPCC at great risk of a legitimacy crisis such as the one that eventuated.
70
Those skeptics who really don’t care,
Who fills the Climate-Change chair,
Would most likely agree,
That the I.P.C.C.,
Be dissolved and no longer be there.
100
Paris is irrelevant.
Most of the negotiations (science is settled, no need to consider it again) happen at events like this Bonn-fight. To save you from working out what “ADP” means:
Best action for Australia would be to attend just to make it clear that it will no longer recognize the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change as a legitimate entity, citing the Vienna Convention to extinguish any binding to all related treaties.
40
More opps for the caviar and champers.As long as they can fly first class.
20
Donna Laframboise wrote a little while ago Van Ypersele: A Terrible Choice for IPCC Chairman
It’s worth a look.
Maybe, as a wild-card, Germany can sacrifice (Warm) Hans Schellnhuber.
41
“IPCC issuing cease and desist orders to publish…”
This level of delusion indicates the IPCCs failure to grasp the permanence of the Internet !
as for the climate scientists supporting this type of behavior… “unethical” just seems too milder word for their conduct.
30
“The end of the IPCC as we know it..”
It is difficult to imagine the IPCC surviving with the House and senate controlled by the GOP.
Obama’s promises of money just seem “hot air” so to speak 😮
In America “climate change” is one of those TV series that is about to be cancelled..
41
Chris Field:
Perhaps … but the vanity entailed here is the wellspring of noble cause corruption. Laid bare
Stocker – much information about his Climategate machinations available on Steve McIntyre’s Climate Audit website. Again, a good scientist whose activist propensities simply cannot be trusted
20
Well go and slip in the gun barrel while I light the fuse.
10
My vote is for Patrick Moore, formerly of Greenpeace… lol = lots of luck.
61
I would like to nominate for IPCC chairman the solitary but endearing troll that comes by this blog religiously to vote down every entry and comment.
Our resident troll is keeping the good fight alive and it is doing it completely alone. He (she?) is being told 97% of the world is behind “climate change” but it is up to him (her?) alone to do god’s work. The sheer cognitive discordance merits reward.
Let’s vote now and let’s vote for the troll.
20
Can I apply? It would be great to have lots of free first class travel around the world.
10
Rolf Harris or Garry Glitter are good bets.
20
There is only one name with the kudos and gravitas to drag the IPCC out of this mire. He is also looking for a new role. Step forward – Sepp Blatter.
30
We just tried the engineer, how about a natural successor like one of his conductors?
00
Ah, North American, are we?
It is only the Americans who confuse a train driver with an engineer. It is easy enough to understand why. Those old American railroad engines needed a lot of maintenance, and the tracks in the old west had very little service facilities, so the person who drove the train had to be an Engineer so he could maintain his own locomotive.
In England (and hence India, because of the Empire) a Railway Engineer means a person who designs and builds the railway network. It is a cross between Civil Engineering (the construction of bridges and cuttings) and Mechanical Engineering. In India, the person who drives a train, is called a “Train Driver.”
And remember, it was the Brits who invented the railway (or railroad, it you like), so you will know I do not lie. 🙂
10
I hope that Nebojsa gets up. “Ne boj” means “don’t be afraid” in Croatian.
00
May I nominate the man with whom I had a very interesting debate on Sunday (name and employer withheld because I don’t have his permission to use them)?
We were able to debate global warming, avoid finger pointing and find that we were in agreement on several key things, even though he thinks the Earth is warming and I don’t. I was quite surprised, though maybe I shouldn’t be because he’s an engineer working for a company you might all recognize. And as I have said at least once before, engineers are scientists. They have to produce useful results, things that actually work and do their intended job. And they can’t do that by believing a consensus, juggling numbers, using unvalidated models or any of the other things we’ve all seen Jo document.
The debate paid me back for sitting out in the hot sun at a church picnic with humidity so high you could cut it with a knife. And we never mentioned the fact that our politics are quite different. It goes to show you that rational discussion is possible.
Unfortunately someone as open to debate on the merit of things is never going to be head of the IPCC.
00
PS: I don’t think I would like -50°C or +40 either. But I would cope with it. I’ve never seen complaining, much less panicking ever help anything.
I hate to admit it but on one of my first several flights when I was learning to fly I lost control of the airplane through not paying close enough attention. I looked over at my instructor for help with nothing but panic going through me, only to find him looking out the window completely ignoring me. He made me fight it out and after I figured out what was going on and recovered, he was still looking out the window. He never said a word about it. I sheepishly went back to doing what I was supposed to do, only this time I was paying much closer attention to details.
Lesson learned. Panic doesn’t help.
10
I reckon our kevi ( I am here to help ) should at least be in the running.
00
Empty vessels make the most sound!
I’d vote for Flannery, Leslie Hughes and Karoly. At a pinch, Matthew England.
Cheers,
Bill
00