Chicanery revealed in the IPCC records
Copyright David Holland 2012
-- All moral rights asserted and reserved
The following comprises part of the arguments in an appeal against Decision
Notice FER0408711 in which the Information Commissioner’s office upheld the
University of East Anglia’s decision to refuse to disclose a letter sent on 26
February 2010 by the Working Group One Technical Support Unit for current IPCC
Fifth Assessment Report to the Lead Authors and Review Editors of the now five
year old 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
1. The
second quotation in the Commissioner’s Paragraph 11 is far more troubling, and
although, as I will show, the IPCC decision that it alludes to is not relevant
to these matter, the chicanery by which it was arrived at and the part the
UEA’s Professor Jones played in it most definitely is relevant. Presumably, AR5 WGI rather than the IPCC is
being quoted as having written,
“... the succession of requests in the UK has
already led us to reconsider some of our working arrangements in order to
protect the freedom of the author team to work undisturbed, and to preserve the
integrity of the IPCC process including confidentiality of interim documents in
accordance with IPCC procedures”
2. The
Commissioner at the end of his paragraph 11, presumably referring to the UEA
states, “It said that this position was reaffirmed in the letter dated 16
November 2011.” While I have no
idea who this letter is from or what it might say, in the IPCC 34th Session 18-19
November 2011 the WGI Co-Chair Professor Thomas Stocker succeeded in tricking
the IPCC into changing the Appendix A to the Principles Governing IPCC work in
line with the wishes expressed by Professor Jones and his colleague Dr Osborn
in the Climategate emails.
3. The
actual IPCC formal decision is not relevant to this case because it refers only
to
“The drafts of IPCC Reports and Technical
Papers which have been submitted for formal expert and/or government review,
the expert and government review comments, and the author responses to those
comments will be made available on the IPCC website as soon as possible after
the acceptance by the Panel and the finalisation of the report. The IPCC
considers its draft reports, prior to acceptance, to be pre-decisional,
provided in confidence to reviewers, and not for public distribution, quotation
or citation.”
There
is no recorded IPCC decision upon which the UEA can justify its pretence that
international relations or the interests of the individual concerned could be
prejudiced. However and to the
contrary, the publicly documented process, which, in 2011, tricked the IPCC
into making a confidentiality decision, gives conclusive evidence that no
possible prejudice could happen to international relations or the individuals
who sent and received the document that is the subject of this appeal.
4. The
Climategate emails show that, long before anyone used the FOIA or EIR to prise
information out of the UEA’s Climatic Research Unit, Professor Jones was
worried. In CG1 email 1107454306.txt dated 2
February 2005, dated 2 February 2005 Professor Jones told Professor Mann
“If they ever hear there is a Freedom of
Information Act now in the UK, I think I'll delete the file rather than send to
anyone.”
5. Well
before Climategate, Glaciergate and the stalled COP15 talks brought the
controversies in climate change to global attention, Dr Osborn wrote to
Professor Stocker who had been appointed as Co-Chair of WGI for AR5. In CG2 email 1526.txt, he expressed
his concerns if the Commissioner, who was investigating my complaint against
the UEA for refusing the requests that I had made in May 2008, decided in my
favour:
If he wins his appeal and we release the
AR4-related correspondence, his opinion seems to be that this precedence will
open up access to AR5 correspondence "as soon as it is held". All UK-based authors would then expect to
receive regular requests for their AR5 correspondence *during* the drafting
process. This would, in my opinion,
adversely affect the relationship between UEA (and all UK universities/public
institutions such as Met Office) and the IPCC -- it would be very supportive if
someone who currently represents IPCC (or at least IPCC WG1) could indicate
that this is also the view/position of the IPCC.
6. Much
of what I had requested from the UEA was released in CG1 and confirmed not just
my suspicions but those of many scientists and other professionals worldwide
that had other concerns about the way the IPCC assessment process was being run
by the climate scientists and the lack of any oversight by their governments or
the IPCC.
7. The
Glaciergate incident, in which it was falsely stated that the Himalayan
glaciers would disappear by 2035, may have been the last straw and, on 10 March
2010, the UN Secretary General asked the InterAcademy Council (IAC) to review
the IPCC Policies and Procedures and report to the IPCC 32nd Session in October
2010 with proposals for reform.
8. This
could have been a turning point for the IPCC, had those like Professors Jones
and Stocker not been allowed to pervert the process that the IPCC laid down at
it 32nd Session in 2010. The IPCC set
up Task Groups to work out in detail how the IAC recommendations should be
translated into changes to its written rules.
The Task Group on Procedures was required to send a draft report to
government ‘focal points’, such as our DECC, by the end of 31 January
2011. The ‘focal points’ were to
submit their government’s comments to the IPCC secretary by 28 February 2011
9. I
requested
these documents from DECC under the EIR, but it refused knowing that the
appeal process would have taken us past the IPCC meeting date of 10-13 May
2011, at which the IPCC decision was taken.
DECC routinely breach the Aarhus Convention obligation to proactively
disseminate information on important proposed IPCC decisions, in time for
public discussion prior to them being made.
This invites the sort of chicanery that was to follow.
10.
The draft Task Group Report and the comments of the
UK government and other IPCC members, which DECC had refused to disclose to me
are now incorporated into a 267
page composite file at the IPCC
website. From this I have
extracted the draft Task Group
Report on Procedures, which DECC had refused to disclose, and the comments on its Section
11 from IPCC member governments including those of DECC and IPCC ‘Office
Holders’.
11.
The purpose of the Task Groups mandated at the IPCC
32nd Session in 2010 was to translate the IAC recommendations and some further
matters discussed at the IPCC 32nd Session into detailed proposals for rule
changes for the IPCC 33rd Session to agree after consultation with the IPCC
members’ focal points.
12.
The IAC Report, its supporting evidence and the
Report of the IPCC 32nd Session are readily available on the Internet, easily
searchable. They can be seen to include not the slightest hint of any
confidentiality proposal. Yet out of
these, in the draft Task Group Report on Procedures, one emerged and the IPCC
in plenary meetings was deceived into agreeing it in first May 2010, and then
into extending it in November 2011.
British public authorities involved in the IPCC AR5 assessment are now
all citing the IPCC confidentiality decision to refuse disclosure of any IPCC
information even though it does not apply to all IPCC information.
13.
In its introduction on page 2, the draft Task Group
on Procedures Report states [note my underline]:
The Task Group recommendations relate to
Appendix A to the Principles Governing IPCC Work (Procedures for the
preparation, review, acceptance, adoption, approval and publication of IPCC
Reports.) and its Annexes, hereafter called ‘Procedures’. The proposals of
the Task Group are presented in sections 2 to 10 of this document.
To some extent the Task Group also discussed
some suggestions that were related to the IAC report recommendations but may be
viewed as being not strictly within the mandate given by the 32nd session of
the IPCC. The Task Group considered these suggestions useful for further
discussion and includes them in this document under the Addendum “Issues for
further discussion on Procedures” (section 11 of this document).. Please
note that this addendum does not reflect any consensus by the Task Group.
14.
Page 10 of Section 11 begins
with the heading [note my underline]:
11. Addendum: Issues for further
discussion on Procedures
In this section 11 of non-consensus issues is found a
paragraph that was not part of the Task Group’s proposals but was a request for
guidance – which supposedly had been the job of the IAC but which did not advocate
any confidentiality in the assessment process. In the middle of page 11 it states,
“Confidentiality
Clear guidance may be needed on what the
rules are for citation/publication of draft reports and other documentation
during drafting and review and how the draft report need to be kept
confidential without contradicting the needed transparency and openness, while
different versions of the draft should be accessible after the completion of
the report.”
Since confidentiality is the logical opposite of openness
and transparency, this was self-evidently an impossible task for the government
members of the IPCC to whom the draft Report had been sent. The IPCC principle of an open and
transparent assessment process was widely used to justify its claim to
authority. Coming after the
revelations in Climategate it seems remarkable that any objective person might
want to press for any confidentiality.
15.
Of the 195 member countries of the IPCC only 23
appear to have made any response at all to the Task Group Reports, which in
itself is very disturbing, considering the global importance of the IPCC
Assessment Reports and the great public concern over the governance of the
IPCC, which had led to the IAC Report.
On one particular decision only 4 governments made any comment at
all. Of the 23 governments, 12 were
European parties to the Aarhus Convention all bound by it article 3(7) to
promote, in the IPCC, the Convention Principles, which are for the fullest
possible disclosure on environmental decision-making processes.
16.
Only 13 governments commented on section 11 of the
Draft Task Group on Procedures report which contained the non-consensus
issues. The individual “issues” in
subsection 11.3 were not separately referenced in the draft Task group report. However, not a single country government
mentions the word “confidentiality” let alone supports it, for which in any
case there was no fully formed proposal for a decision as was required in the
Task Group mandate from the IPCC 32nd Session.
17.
On the basis of these comments there was no obvious
desire from any IPCC member country to pursue the request for guidance on
confidentiality in the assessment process, which was in conflict with the IPCC
Principle of openness and transparency.
18.
The documented total lack of any international
support for any confidentiality decision is the strongest possible evidence
that British interests in international relations would not be prejudiced in
any way by the disclosure in the UK of any of the IPCC documents that are
widely distributed to the hundreds of participants in the IPCC assessment
process. The Canadian government
view was stated clearly on first page of the extract of the 267 page
composite file of government and office holders comments:
“Canada notes that the issues raised in the
Addendum have not undergone sufficient analysis by the Task Group and require
much further discussion. There are a number of issues in section 11.3, such as
the proposals under "crosscutting issues" and "range of
scientific views," that would pose significant implementation challenges.
It is suggested that the Task Group recommend that during IPCC-33 the Panel
focus on the body of the proposal only. Canada would support an ongoing process
after IPCC-33 for governments to consider other issues identified by the Task
Group (in conjunction with the Bureau and TSUs).”
19.
Also on the first page, the Malaysian government
had commented:
“Since the Task Group members do not have the
mandate given by the 32nd session of the IPCC to consider the issues as noted
in the Addendum, therefore, the maters must go back to the Panel of the IPCC
for consideration – the 33rd Panel of the IPCC should further discuss those
issues and make decision.”
20.
Three of the ‘Office Holders’, the Co-Chairs of WGI
and WGIII, Professors Stocker and Dr Ramón Pichs-Madruga, and the IPCC
Secretary, Dr Renate Christ, on the other hand argued for a confidentiality
rule, with Professor Stocker, on page 5 of extract of the the comments,
proposing that the issue be moved into the first part of the Final Task Group
Report on Procedures, even though there was no proposed decision that had been
presented in advance to any government for detailed consideration.
21.
On 12 May 2011, the penultimate day of the IPCC
session, according to its electronic properties, the final Task Group on Procedures
Report was created by the IPCC Secretariat. This left no reasonable time for any consideration of new or
controversial text and for any oversight whatever by any government
departments. In its introduction, the
document states untruthfully [my underline]:
The Task Group on Procedures also further
discussed the IAC recommendations in the context of increasing
transparency and further improving the quality of the assessment reports.
This has led to an ‘Addendum’ in the Geneva document, containing proposals
that were not the result of a consensus within the Task Group, but were
believed to be relevant for further consideration by the Panel.
There was no IAC recommendation that could conceivably have
led to a proposal for a confidentiality decision and none had been put to
government members of the IPCC in the ‘Addendum’ to the Geneva document. It contained only a request for guidance on
the matter.
22.
In the draft Task Group Report the ‘Addendum’ items
had been described as “Issues for further discussion on Procedures”. However, without any due process or time
for the representatives of the IPCC members to consult their governments on it,
the request for guidance on confidentiality had been changed by the IPCC
Secretary and the Working Group Co-Chairs into a fully formed proposed
decision. Since there was no
proposed decision on confidentiality in the draft version and no government
commented specifically on the confidentiality issue, this last minute document
states untruthfully on
its page10 [note my underline]:
6bis Additional proposed
decisions on the assessment and review process (cat. II)
These issues were raised in the ‘Addendum’ of
the Geneva document and addressed by government comments.
23.
The government comments are published and not one
expressed any desire for a guidance on confidentiality and there was no
detailed proposal put forward and no IAC recommendation for it. However, on the page marked as 12 of the final version of the Task
Group on Procedures Report, it states:
6bis 4.2 Proposed decision (cat II)
All drafts of IPCC assessment reports (including
the final draft) will be considered to be confidential material, not for public
distribution quotation, or citation until acceptance by the Panel of the final
IPCC report. The first order draft, second order draft and the final draft, the
expert and government review comments, and the author responses to those
comments on both drafts will be made available on the IPCC open website on a
clearly visible place, within xx weeks after the acceptance of the report by
the Panel.
24.
The proposed decision shown above appears to have
been modified at some point and in the formal decision document
is described as below:
At its 33rd Session, the Panel decided that the
drafts of IPCC Reports and Technical Papers which have been submitted for
formal expert and/or government review, the expert and government review
comments, and the author responses to those comments will be made available on
the IPCC website as soon as possible after the acceptance by the Panel and the
finalization of the report. IPCC
considers its draft reports, prior to acceptance, to be pre-decisional,
provided in confidence to reviewers, and not for public distribution, quotation
or citation.