IEWY News (UK): UNEP welcomes review of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

IEWY News (UK): UNEP welcomes review of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

2 September 2010

Statement by Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director UN Environment Programme (UNEP) in Response to the Report by the

InterAcademy Council (IAC) on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

UNEP welcomes the independent review of the IAC, requested by the United Nations Secretary General and the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

We will now study the findings and recommendations and look forward to how governments will respond when they meet at the upcoming IPCC plenary in the Republic of Korea in October.

UNEP’s initial response to this thorough report, conducted by the leading body representing many of the world’s distinguished scientific academies, is that it re-affirms the integrity; the importance and validity of the IPCC’s work while recognizing areas for improvement in a rapidly evolving field.

The IAC did not review the fundamental science of climate change but was tasked with reviewing the processes, procedures and management of the IPCC in part to minimize errors as the body moves forward.

As the IAC points out in its preface to today’s report, several recent reviews including by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the United States National Research Council—carried out following concern over alleged errors in the 2007 fourth assessment of the IPCC—concluded that the key findings remain unaffected.

The thousands of scientists involved in the fourth assessment of the IPCC concluded that it is over 90 per cent certain that human beings and their activities are contributing to climate change.

The IAC has today outlined a series of recommendations that can strengthen the administration; management, functioning and work of the IPCC, co-hosted by UNEP and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), as it undertakes its crucial fifth assessment.

These recommendations underscore that the IPCC remains the premier body for undertaking the risk assessment needed in such a complex field where knowledge- especially in respect to likely regional impacts- remains imperfect and where new knowledge is constantly being generated.

Recommendations for strengthening the IPCC cover such areas as how best to support the secretariat up to how best to communicate the complexity of risk in areas such as changes in rainfall patterns.

The IAC’s assessment also confirms that lead authors of the IPCC’s three working groups are not discounting or dismissing contradictory or competing evidence.

But considers they are reviewing and taking into account all available research in order to provide policy-makers with the best available science, options and opportunities for action.

However the IAC concludes that this process could also be streamlined and improved further in order to meet the challenge of ever growing numbers of climate science research papers and new scientific avenues of investigation and concern.

Today the world needs to draw a line in the sand on the debate as to whether climate change is happening and whether the IPCC offers the best available body for furthering public and political understanding.

There will always be some who, for a variety of reasons including personal and ideological ones prefer to reject or question the overwhelming scientific evidence that has been accumulating before and since the IPCC’s first assessment in 1990.

Legitimate or otherwise, these views should not and must not hold back the international community from finding a decisive new agreement that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions to ’safe’ levels and provide the policies, mechanisms and support to assist developing countries adapt.

The IAC’s report comes in the wake of a year in which extreme and tragic weather events have occurred in 2010—from the forests fires in Russia to the floods in Pakistan, China, Europe and elsewhere.

These are the kind of extreme weather events in line with the forecasts of the IPCC which, unless climate change is addressed, are likely to become ever more frequent, ever more extreme and more costly.

With the fundamental science underpinning the IPCC’s assessment reports not in doubt, and clear recommendations on how to move forward in respect to the administration of the IPCC, the international community must move beyond the current paralysis in developing an effective response.

The UN climate convention meeting in Cancun, Mexico, later in the year, will be the next milestone in testing the resolve of governments to act with foresight and responsibility to meet the challenges and the opportunities from a transition to a low carbon, resource efficient Green Economy.

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Environmental Expert (Blog): UNEP head donates prize money to flood victims

1 September 2010

Achim Steiner, the head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), has donated a USD70,000 international leadership prize to relief efforts in Pakistan following the devastating and on-going floods, it was announced on 30th August. Mr. Steiner was awarded the 2010 Tällberg Foundation prize at a ceremony in Stockholm on Sunday evening for 'principled pragmatism' and 'leadership that walks the talk'.

The value of the award, whose previous winners include former Norwegian Prime Minister Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, is 500,000 Swedish Krona or close to USD70,000. Mr. Steiner, who is also a UN Under-Secretary General, began his professional career working in the villages of Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa Province.

He said he had been deeply touched not only by the scale of the disaster but also the extraordinary efforts of local communities and organisations in mobilizing relief efforts while support from the international community was being deployed.

Mr Steiner announced to the audience that he would immediately transfer the funds to the Sarhad Rural Support Programme (SRSP) - a national NGO which has mobilised a vital flood relief and rehabilitation effort for the affected communities in the Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa Province during the past weeks.

The funds will be deployed with a focus on rehabilitation and reconstruction projects for communities returning to rebuild their lives and livelihoods.

SRSP Chief Executive, Mr Masood Ul Mulk has thanked Mr Steiner on behalf of the people of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa for remembering them in their hour of distress and for advocating their cause to the world.

In his acceptance speech at the award ceremony Mr.Steiner called for a spirit of solidarity and generosity to assist the people of Pakistan at this time of crisis.

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