Eduardo Zorita: "I really do not see how the IPCC can help policy makers"

Die Klimazwiebel: Interview with Eduardo Zorita

[Zorita] I really do not see how the IPCC can help policy makers. I guess that very few, if any, policy makers are reading the WG-I report. The Summary for Policy Makers is co-written by government officials and scientist, and thus it seems that it is the result of some type of obscure negotiations. This leads to all sorts of wrong incentives, also for scientists. In some countries, a criterion for promotion is whether your work has been cited by the IPCC, this gives already an idea about how the IPCC reports are misused for goals totally alien to the intended purpose. I think another type of IPCC would have been much more useful. For instance, the US government, when faced by the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, called Feynman to lead an investigation team. The IPCC could be something of this sort: a commission lead by independent scientists, who are not climate scientists themselves, but who are smart enough to gather the information they need from the sources they deem adequate.

Some scientist feel very motivated to influence policy directly, and I have the impression that in the end these scientists are being misused by the politicians themselves, which can then boast green credentials in the next elections.
...I personally would have advocated much more transparency, for instance making the IPCC author meetings public on the internet.
...
I hope that in 50 years, with long series of satellite data, we will know how sensitive climate is to external perturbations, and probably we will know how large internal climate variability is. But, hopefully, at that time anthropogenic the carbon dioxide will have ceased to be an issue. My tentative prediction is that the main source of energy will be geothermal and that climate science will be focused on other fields...

ClimateGate Email 1335

I do not believe that this event will be constructive and amicable with Zorita's participation. If the recommendaitons of the organizers are not going to
be followed, I am unsure I can participate in or endorse this event. If  Zorita is in, I am out!

Mike