The role of the IPCC is to assess climate change not advocate Kyoto

Underlying the IPCC's unprofessional way of dealing with its critics is a perception of the Panel's role that does not sit easily with what were, at least until recently, widely accepted views of the proper role of science in relation to the political processes.

James Hansen's concerns about the "close binding between the IPCC and the Kyoto Protocol discussions" have already been mentioned. Comments made by Dr. Pachauri soon after his election to the chairmanship of the IPCC 12 months later serve to reinforce those concerns. According to a BBC report, the new chairman said that there was a need for a dialogue on what commitments nations should make in a second wave after Kyoto: "I think that the science must provide a compelling reason and a logic to take those steps, and this is what I hope the IPCC will be able to do in the future."

There are disturbing signs that the IPCC has increasingly seen its role as that of providing scientific justification for the maintenance of divisive Kyoto-style emissions restrictions, rather than of providing an objective assessment. Dr. Zillman has recently expressed the view that the IPCC has now become "cast more in the mode of supporting than informing policy development" (Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, 2003, vol. 16:85).

I am not competent to assess the full implications of Hansen's "alternative scenario". But it is a matter of public record that, four years after its publication, this radical proposal, which - if valid - has far-reaching implications for the appropriate policy response to the prospect of global climate change in the coming decades, has not been considered by the IPCC. Meanwhile, Hansen's papers and statements have become increasingly critical of the Panel's modus operandi.

The IPCC's failure to consider the Hansen "alternative scenario" and its dismissal of the Castles and Henderson critique are disturbing signs that the Panel's role in the assessment of the science of climate change has now become subservient to its role in supporting a specific policy agenda.