Lawrence Solomon: It’s official, there’s no consensus on climate change | FP Comment | Financial Post

The report, in other words, dissects the nature of the scientific debate over global warming — the word “debate” appears more than 50 times in the report. “In its successive assessment reports, the IPCC has sought to achieve a scientific consensus, but many continue to challenge the basis of its work and its conclusions, it states. The IPCC’s failure to establish a consensus led to a debate that “became highly polarized in websites, journals and conferences across the world. As a result, the work conducted by CRU became the focus of intense scrutiny and challenge, with multiple demands from both fellow scientists and laymen for background information and data.”

The global warming debate, the report makes clear, is real and legitimate, conducted by respectable parties who have every right to challenge the science and to hold the climate science establishment accountable.