India Drops IPCC in Favour of Own Panel

By Dave Semeniuk On February 5, 2010 · Leave a Comment · In >archive

From (strangely enough) the International Business Times:

The Indian government has moved to establish its own body to address and monitor science surrounding climate change, saying it “cannot rely” on the official United Nation panel.

The move is a severe blow to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) following the revelation parts of its 3000 page 2007 report on climate science was not subjected to peer review.

A primary claim of the report was the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035, but the claim was not repeated in any peer-reviewed studies and rebuffed by scientists.

India’s environment minister Jairam Ramesh announced that the Indian government will establish a separate National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology to monitor climate change in the region.

“There is a fine line between climate science and climate evangelism,” Ramesh said. “I am for climate science.”

So, the representatives of a billion+ people no longer recognize the IPCC as a valid and valuable source for information on climate change and related public policy. All of this over a single, albeit unfortunate, mis-reference that was caught via peer review. Holy shit.