Post by marchesarosa on Jun 19, 2011 13:14:26 GMT 1
Pachauri: No Conflict of Interest Policy for IPCC AR5
by Steve McIntyre
June 18th
climateaudit.org/2011/06/18/pachauri-no-conflict-of-interest-policy-for-ar5/
Yesterday, IPCC chairman Pachauri told Oliver Morton of The Economist at an IPCC event in Brussels that conflict of interest policies would not not apply to AR5 authors. IPCC thereby sabotaged recommendations from the Interacademy Council and announced its plans to evade the conflict of interest policies passed at the 33rd IPCC plenary only a month ago.
The Pachauri Interview
Here’s what Pachauri said in response to Oliver Morton – see Morton’s interesting blog article here:
B: Are you happy with the IPCC’s new conflict-of-interest policy? [adopted at the panel’s recent plenary]
RP: Absolutely. I must say that was a very heartening piece of work. People put in a lot of effort to come up with what I think is a very robust policy in terms of conflict of interest.
B: At what point should it start to apply?
RP: It’s applicable right away. Of course if you look at conflict of interest with respect to authors who are there in the 5th Assessment Report we’ve already selected them and therefore it wouldn’t be fair to impose anything that sort of applies retrospectively.
All sorts of editorial responses spring to mind (one of which is that, in transcription, Pachauri sure sounds like Acton of East Anglia.) But first let’s follow some backstory – through the IAC Report and the COI policy adopted at the 33rd IPCC plenary.
IAC Report
Last summer, the Interacademy Panel (in rather sharp terms) recommended that IPCC adopt a Conflict of Interest policy, first noting that many institutions had conflict of interest policies and reporting on the IPCC situation as follows:
The IPCC does not have a conflict-of-interest or disclosure policy for its
senior leadership (i.e., IPCC Chair and Vice Chairs), Working Group
Co-chairs and authors, or the staff of the Technical Support Units. The
professional staff members of the IPCC Secretariat are employees of
WMO and/or UNEP and are subject to their disclosure and ethics policies.
In particular, all IPCC Secretariat staff in Geneva, except for the Deputy
Secretary, are WMO employees and therefore are required to follow the
WMO code of ethics; the IPCC Deputy Secretary follows UN staff regulations;
and the IPCC Secretary must comply with the rules for both UN and
WMO staff because the Secretary is seconded from UNEP and WMO.
The lack of a conflict-of-interest and disclosure policy for IPCC leaders
and Lead Authors was a concern raised by a number of individuals who
were interviewed by the Committee or provided written input. Questions
about potential conflicts of interest, for example, have been raised about
the IPCC Chair’s service as an adviser to, and board member of, for-profit
energy companies (Pielke, 2010b), and about the practice of scientists
responsible for writing IPCC assessments reviewing their own work. The
Committee did not investigate the basis of these claims, which is beyond
the mandate of this review. However, the Committee believes that the
nature of the IPCC’s task (i.e., in presenting a series of expert judgments
on issues of great societal relevance) demands that the IPCC pay special
attention to issues of independence and bias to maintain the integrity of,
and public confidence in, its results.
Note that the IAC drew specific attention to the problem of authors assessing their own work – one of the issues involved with the current Greenpeace situation and obviously not dealt with yet. In response, the IPCC said that they would discuss it at the next Plenary session – the 32nd session last October:
The IPCC Secretariat informed the Committee that the Panel will be
discussing options for conflict-of-interest and disclosure policies for the
various actors in the IPCC process (e.g., members of the Bureau, non-UN
staff, non-WMO staff, and authors) at its next Plenary session.
More........
by Steve McIntyre
June 18th
climateaudit.org/2011/06/18/pachauri-no-conflict-of-interest-policy-for-ar5/
Yesterday, IPCC chairman Pachauri told Oliver Morton of The Economist at an IPCC event in Brussels that conflict of interest policies would not not apply to AR5 authors. IPCC thereby sabotaged recommendations from the Interacademy Council and announced its plans to evade the conflict of interest policies passed at the 33rd IPCC plenary only a month ago.
The Pachauri Interview
Here’s what Pachauri said in response to Oliver Morton – see Morton’s interesting blog article here:
B: Are you happy with the IPCC’s new conflict-of-interest policy? [adopted at the panel’s recent plenary]
RP: Absolutely. I must say that was a very heartening piece of work. People put in a lot of effort to come up with what I think is a very robust policy in terms of conflict of interest.
B: At what point should it start to apply?
RP: It’s applicable right away. Of course if you look at conflict of interest with respect to authors who are there in the 5th Assessment Report we’ve already selected them and therefore it wouldn’t be fair to impose anything that sort of applies retrospectively.
All sorts of editorial responses spring to mind (one of which is that, in transcription, Pachauri sure sounds like Acton of East Anglia.) But first let’s follow some backstory – through the IAC Report and the COI policy adopted at the 33rd IPCC plenary.
IAC Report
Last summer, the Interacademy Panel (in rather sharp terms) recommended that IPCC adopt a Conflict of Interest policy, first noting that many institutions had conflict of interest policies and reporting on the IPCC situation as follows:
The IPCC does not have a conflict-of-interest or disclosure policy for its
senior leadership (i.e., IPCC Chair and Vice Chairs), Working Group
Co-chairs and authors, or the staff of the Technical Support Units. The
professional staff members of the IPCC Secretariat are employees of
WMO and/or UNEP and are subject to their disclosure and ethics policies.
In particular, all IPCC Secretariat staff in Geneva, except for the Deputy
Secretary, are WMO employees and therefore are required to follow the
WMO code of ethics; the IPCC Deputy Secretary follows UN staff regulations;
and the IPCC Secretary must comply with the rules for both UN and
WMO staff because the Secretary is seconded from UNEP and WMO.
The lack of a conflict-of-interest and disclosure policy for IPCC leaders
and Lead Authors was a concern raised by a number of individuals who
were interviewed by the Committee or provided written input. Questions
about potential conflicts of interest, for example, have been raised about
the IPCC Chair’s service as an adviser to, and board member of, for-profit
energy companies (Pielke, 2010b), and about the practice of scientists
responsible for writing IPCC assessments reviewing their own work. The
Committee did not investigate the basis of these claims, which is beyond
the mandate of this review. However, the Committee believes that the
nature of the IPCC’s task (i.e., in presenting a series of expert judgments
on issues of great societal relevance) demands that the IPCC pay special
attention to issues of independence and bias to maintain the integrity of,
and public confidence in, its results.
Note that the IAC drew specific attention to the problem of authors assessing their own work – one of the issues involved with the current Greenpeace situation and obviously not dealt with yet. In response, the IPCC said that they would discuss it at the next Plenary session – the 32nd session last October:
The IPCC Secretariat informed the Committee that the Panel will be
discussing options for conflict-of-interest and disclosure policies for the
various actors in the IPCC process (e.g., members of the Bureau, non-UN
staff, non-WMO staff, and authors) at its next Plenary session.
More........
