This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Feb. 21, 2011 - WASHINGTON - Stunned by a late-night amendment by U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, some leading scientists are hoping to block his effort to stop federal funding of the Nobel Prize-winning international climate-change panel.
Contending that the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has produced "corrupt findings" that have been used by "climate alarmists" to push for cap-and-trade legislation, Luetkemeyer got the U.S. House to adopt, in a 244-179 vote, an amendment to the stopgap spending bill that would ban U.S. funds for the panel.
Saying that he was "extremely pleased" by the vote Friday night, Luetkemeyer, a Republican from St. Elizabeth, issued a statement this weekend arguing that the IPCC -- which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace prize with former Vice President Al Gore for its climate-change assessments -- "is fraught with waste and fraud."
In his House remarks, as seen on YouTube, the Missouri congressman said that "supporters of cap-and-trade legislation have used the questionable science findings of the IPCC as reasons to support onerous legislation," which was approved by the House last year but got nowhere in the U.S. Senate.
Scientists Defend the Ipcc
After the vote, some leading climate-change scientists took issue with Luetkemeyer's assertions and said that de-funding the IPCC would hurt international efforts to study and analyze climate change. The IPCC does not conduct its own research, but assesses the most recent worldwide scientific, technical and socio-economic information on the issue.
Christopher Field, a co-chair of an IPCC working group who is director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, told the Beacon on Monday that the IPCC "is a very good deal for the governments and for the world." Field, a leading U.S. climate change researcher, is also a professor of biology and environmental earth system science at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.
"The IPCC has been able to harness, at a minimal cost, a remarkable pool of scientific knowledge and experience through this approach of engaging volunteers," said Field, who spoke at Washington University in St. Louis last September. "In their work with the IPCC, hundreds of the world's leading scientists are donating their nights and weekends to provide the world's governments with the best available information on climate science."
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the leading Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said during the House debate on Luetkemeyer's measure that "our $2.3 million contribution leverages a global science assessment of institutions with global outreach and global technical input -- a process we could not carry on alone, and one that could come to a halt without U.S. support."
Waxman said the IPCC's "work on climate change is unparalleled, and its four assessment reports to date have brought together thousands of scientists around the world in disciplines ranging from atmospheric science to forest ecology to economics to provide objective and policy-neutral information."
After word spread over the weekend about Luetkemeyer's successful amendment, a number of leading scientists decried what they viewed as the politicization of research. A Science magazine blog quoted Jane Lubchenco, an environmental scientist who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as saying: "Science should not be partisan. It is highly unfortunate that in many cases it is."
A blogger for Discovery magazine wrote that the House vote "to defund the IPCC, rather than attack or criticize it, doesn't bespeak a strategy of doubt-mongering. It signals extreme certainty that one is right, that we don't even need to consider (skeptically or otherwise) any more new results from climate scientists."
While Waxman said the U.S. government only spends about $2.3 million a year on the IPCC, Luetkemeyer said that President Barack Obama had allocated about $13 million related to the IPCC in his budget request for the 2012 fiscal year. A spokesman for the congressman told the Beacon on Monday that the House-passed amendment applied to this year's federal spending and that Luetkemeyer planned to continue his effort to stop IPCC spending in future years.
Field told the Beacon that the 2009 U.S. contributions to IPCC activities amounted to about $3 million, of which about $1.5 million went to the IPCC trust fund and about $1.5 million covered travel expenses for U.S. scientists and the technical support unit. He said that U.S. contributions to the IPCC's trust fund -- which supports the organization's international coordinating team -- have ranged from a low of $199,000 in 1988-89 to a high of about $5.7 million in 1998-99.
Luetkemeyer Gets Some Support
During the House debate, Luetkemeyer said his criticism of the panel related partly to the so-called "climate-gate" debate linked to emails from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Critics argued that these emails showed evidence of a cover-up of data that didn't support climate change. Later reviews mostly cleared the British researchers involved, although they also found that the researchers should have been more open about the data.
The Missouri congressman also held up a report by "more than 700 acclaimed international scientists" that challenged IPCC findings. One of those skeptics, former NASA scientist Roy Spencer, a climatology researcher at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, wrote in his blog this weekend about the Luetkemeyer amendment that the IPCC is "not a scientific organization. It was organized to use the government-funded scientific research establishment to achieve policy goals."
Spencer added that: "In the end, I doubt the IPCC will ever be defunded. Last night's vote in the House is just a warning shot across the bow. But unless the IPCC starts to change its ways, it runs the risk of being totally marginalized. It has almost reached that point, anyway."
For his part, Field told the Beacon that he hopes that scientists will rally to the defense of the IPCC before the U.S. Senate considers its version of the stopgap spending bill. "The scientific community needs to help people understand" the importance of the IPCC, he said. "We also need to help people understand how science works."
Field said, "I don't get any salary from the IPCC." He said the most support for the panel comes from "volunteer contributions of the scientists themselves." Contributions to the panel's trust fund from the United States and other countries represent the second main source of support, which "pays for the small secretariat in Geneva and for the travel to bring developing country scientists to IPCC meetings." The third source of funding is the support that developed countries use to send scientists to IPCC meetings and to host technical support units, which as the working group that he co-chairs.
"These are people whose job is to make sure that every detail is checked, that the procedures are followed scrupulously, and that reports are delivered on time," Field said. "I am very proud of the dedication and professionalism of my team."
Academic researchers outside of the scientific community often make use of IPCC reports. William R. Lowry, a political science professor at Washington University, told the Beacon on Monday that "to me, the IPCC is a pretty reliable source" for climate-change information. "Losing that would be problematic. It's one place we can get some honest data about climate change."