Scientists Offered Cash to Dispute Climate Study
By Ian Sample
The Guardian UK
Friday 02 February 2007
Scientists and economists have been offered
$10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the
world's largest oil companies to undermine a major
climate change report due to be published today.
Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute
(AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links
to the Bush administration, offered the payments for
articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report
from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC).
Travel expenses and additional payments were also
offered.
The UN report was written by international experts
and is widely regarded as the most comprehensive
review yet of climate change science. It will underpin
international negotiations on new emissions targets to
succeed the Kyoto agreement, the first phase of which
expires in 2012. World governments were given a draft
last year and invited to comment.
The AEI has received more than $1.6m from
ExxonMobil and more than 20 of its staff have worked
as consultants to the Bush administration. Lee
Raymond, a former head of ExxonMobil, is the
vice-chairman of AEI's board of trustees.
The letters, sent to scientists in Britain, the US
and elsewhere, attack the UN's panel as "resistant to
reasonable criticism and dissent and prone to summary
conclusions that are poorly supported by the
analytical work" and ask for essays that "thoughtfully
explore the limitations of climate model outputs".
Climate scientists described the move yesterday as
an attempt to cast doubt over the "overwhelming
scientific evidence" on global warming. "It's a
desperate attempt by an organisation who wants to
distort science for their own political aims," said
David Viner of the Climatic Research Unit at the
University of East Anglia.
"The IPCC process is probably the most thorough
and open review undertaken in any discipline. This
undermines the confidence of the public in the
scientific community and the ability of governments to
take on sound scientific advice," he said.
The letters were sent by Kenneth Green, a visiting
scholar at AEI, who confirmed that the organisation
had approached scientists, economists and policy
analysts to write articles for an independent review
that would highlight the strengths and weaknesses of
the IPCC report.
"Right now, the whole debate is polarised," he
said. "One group says that anyone with any doubts
whatsoever are deniers and the other group is saying
that anyone who wants to take action is alarmist. We
don't think that approach has a lot of utility for
intelligent policy."
One American scientist turned down the offer,
citing fears that the report could easily be misused
for political gain. "You wouldn't know if some of the
other authors might say nothing's going to happen,
that we should ignore it, or that it's not our fault,"
said Steve Schroeder, a professor at Texas A&M
university.
The contents of the IPCC report have been an open
secret since the Bush administration posted its draft
copy on the internet in April. It says there is a 90%
chance that human activity is warming the planet, and
that global average temperatures will rise by another
1.5 to 5.8C this century, depending on emissions.
Lord Rees of Ludlow, the president of the Royal
Society, Britain's most prestigious scientific
institute, said: "The IPCC is the world's leading
authority on climate change and its latest report will
provide a comprehensive picture of the latest
scientific understanding on the issue. It is expected
to stress, more convincingly than ever before, that
our planet is already warming due to human actions,
and that 'business as usual' would lead to
unacceptable risks, underscoring the urgent need for
concerted international action to reduce the worst
impacts of climate change. However, yet again, there
will be a vocal minority with their own agendas who
will try to suggest otherwise."
Ben Stewart of Greenpeace said: "The AEI is more
than just a thinktank, it functions as the Bush
administration's intellectual Cosa Nostra. They are
White House surrogates in the last throes of their
campaign of climate change denial. They lost on the
science; they lost on the moral case for action. All
they've got left is a suitcase full of cash."
On Monday, another Exxon-funded organisation based
in Canada will launch a review in London which casts
doubt on the IPCC report. Among its authors are Tad
Murty, a former scientist who believes human activity
makes no contribution to global warming. Confirmed
VIPs attending include Nigel Lawson and David Bellamy,
who believes there is no link between burning fossil
fuels and global warming.
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