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Robert Stavins ist Professor für Umwelt-Ökonomie an der renommierten Harvard Universität im US-amerikanischen Cambridge. Stavins war als Leitautor maßgeblich an der Erstellung des 5. Klimaberichts des IPCC beteiligt. In einem Brief an den Vorsitzenden der Arbeitsgruppe III des IPCC, Ottmar Edenhofer vom Potsdam-Institut für Klimafolgenforschung (PIK), beklagte sich Robert Stavins am 25. April 2014 in seinem Blog An Economic View of the Environment über fragwürdige Änderungen im Zusammenfassungstext des Berichts, die von Nichtwissenschaftlern hinter verschlossenen Türen vorgenommen wurden. Das praktizierte IPCC-System ist laut Stavin ungeeignet, da die Regierungsvertreter von den jeweiligen Staatsinteressen gelenkt seien und Interessenskonflikte unvermeidbar wären. Lange Textpassagen der Wissenschaftler wurden in nächtlichen Hauruck-Aktionen einfach gestrichen, da keine Einstimmigkeit der vielen beteiligten Ländervertreter erzielt werden konnte.

Stavin stellt absurde Verfahrensweisen des IPCC an den Pranger, die das System als ungeeignet entlarven und die Zusammenfassungen der IPCC-Klimaberichte in einem ganz anderen Licht erscheinen lassen. Bereits in unserem Buch „Die kalte Sonne“ hatten wir die Interessenskonflikte zwischen Politik und Wissenschaft im IPCC-Betrieb kritisiert. Mit Stavin bestätigt nun ein Insider des IPCC diese Systemschwäche.

Im Folgenden geben wir Robert Stavins Schreiben in voller Länge im englischen Original wieder. Besonders wichtige Passagen haben wir fett markiert:

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From: Stavins, Robert
Sent: Thursday, April 17, 2014 4:06 PM

TO: Ottmar Edenhofer, Co-Chair, Working Group III, AR5, IPCC
Ramon Pichs-Madruga, Co-Chair, Working Group III, AR5, IPCC
Youba Sokona, Co-Chair, Working Group III, AR5, IPCC

CC:  Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman, IPCC
Jan Minx, Head of Technical Support Unit, Working Group III

FROM:   Robert Stavins

 SUBJECT:  Thoughts on the Government Approval Process for SPM.5.2 (International Cooperation) of the Summary for Policymakers of Working Group 3, Fifth Assessment Report, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Dear Ottmar, Ramon, and Youba:

I am writing to you today to express my disappointment and frustration with the process and outcome of the government approval meetings in Berlin this past week, at which the assembled representatives from the world’s governments, considered and, in effect, fundamentally revised or rejected parts of the Summary for Policymakers (SPM) of IPCC Working Group 3 over a period of five long days (and nights).  My focus in this letter is exclusively on one section of the SPM, namely SPM.5.2, International Cooperation.  I am not representing nor referring to any other parts of the SPM.

Also, none of what I have to say should be taken as reflecting negatively on you (the Co-Chairs of Working Group 3), the WG 3 Technical Support Unit (TSU), nor the overall leadership of the IPCC.  On the contrary, I thought that all of you did a remarkable job over the five years of work on AR5, as well as during the week in Berlin.  The problems about which I’m writing arose despite, not because of your excellent leadership and support.

More broadly, the problems I identify in this letter are not a consequence of personal failings of any of the individuals involved.  My intent is not to criticize the country representatives, the IPCC leadership, the TSU, the Lead Authors, or the Coordinating Lead Authors.  The problems I seek to identify are structural, not personal.

Further, as Co-Coordinating Lead Author (CLA) of Chapter 13 (International Cooperation:  Agreements and Instruments) of the underlying report, I had primary responsibility – together with my Co-Coordinating Lead Author, Dr. Zou Ji – for drafting the text for Section SPM.5.2 (International Cooperation) of the SPM, and nothing in this letter should implicate Zou Ji, for whom I have great respect and with whom I have enjoyed working.  He may or may not share any of the views I express below.

Another caveat is that none of the problems I describe in this letter apply to either the Technical Summary nor the underlying Chapter 13.  Indeed, because of the problems with Section SPM.5.2 on international cooperation in the SPM, it is important that interested parties refer instead to the Technical Summary, or better yet, the original Chapter 13.

In this letter, I will not comment on the government review and revision process that affected other parts of the SPM, other than to note that as the week progressed, I was surprised by the degree to which governments felt free to recommend and sometimes insist on detailed changes to the SPM text on purely political, as opposed to scientific bases.

The general motivations for government revisions – from most (but not all) participating delegations – appeared to be quite clear in the plenary sessions. These motivations were made explicit in the “contact groups,” which met behind closed doors in small groups with the lead authors on particularly challenging sections of the SPM. In these contact groups, government representatives worked to suppress text that might jeopardize their negotiating stances in international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Anfang April 2014 hatten wir an dieser Stelle über den angesehenen Klimawissenschaftler Richard Tol berichtet, der den IPCC verlassen hatte, da er die alarmistische Berichterstattung nicht mehr mittragen wollte. In seinem Blog beschrieb Insider Tol am 25. April 2014 die strukturellen Schwächen des IPCC. Richard Tols Bericht erlaubt einen seltenen Einblick in eine geheimnisvolle Organisation, die sich nach außen stets als vollkommen transpararent, integer und wissenschaftlich ergebnisoffen darstellt. Nach Lektüre der Zeilen wird hoffentlich auch der letzte Zweifler nachdenklich. Im Folgenden erlauben wir uns, Tols Text in voller Länger in englischer Originalversion wiederzugeben.

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IPCC again

By Richard Tol

In September 2013, I stepped down from the team that prepared the draft of the Summary for Policy Makers to the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This attracted worldwide media attention in April 2014. Regrettably, the story of AR5 became the story of a man. I have been involved with the IPCC since 1994, fulfilling a variety of roles in all three working groups. After the debacle of AR4 – where the Himalayan glacier melt really was the least of the errors – I had criticized the IPCC for faulty quality control. Noblesse oblige – I am the 20th most-cited climate scholar in the world – so I volunteered for AR5. The Irish government put my name forward only to withdraw its financial commitment when I was indeed elected. The necessary funding could have easily been freed up if the Irish delegation to the international climate negotiations and the IPCC would trim its luxurious travel arrangements.

As a Convening Lead Author of one of the chapters, I was automatically on the team to draft the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM). AR5 is a literature review of 2,600 pages long. It assesses a large body of scholarly publication. In some places, the chapters are so condensed that there are a few words per article in the learned literature. The SPM then distills the key messages into 44 pages – but everyone knows that policy and media will only pick up a few sentences. This leads to a contest between chapters – my impact is worst, so I will get the headlines.

In the earlier drafts of the SPM, there was a key message that was new, snappy and relevant: Many of the more worrying impacts of climate change really are symptoms of mismanagement and underdevelopment. This message does not support the political agenda for greenhouse gas emission reduction. Later drafts put more and more emphasis on the reasons for concern about climate change, a concept I had helped to develop for AR3. Raising the alarm about climate change has been tried before, many times in fact, but it has not had an appreciable effect on greenhouse gas emissions. I reckoned that putting my name on such a document would not be credible – my opinions are well-known – and I withdrew.

The SPM, drafted by the scholars of the IPCC, is rewritten by delegates of the governments of the world, in this case in a week-long session in Yokohama. Some of these delegates are scholars, others are not. The Irish delegate, for instance, thinks that unmitigated climate change would put us on a highway to hell, referring, I believe, to an AC/DC song rather than a learned paper. Other delegations have a political agenda too. The international climate negotiations of 2013 in Warsaw concluded that poor countries might be entitled to compensation for the impacts of climate change. It stands to reason that the IPCC would be asked to assess the size of those impacts and hence the compensation package. This led to an undignified bidding war among delegations – my country is more vulnerable than yours – that descended into farce when landlocked countries vigorously protested that they too would suffer from sea level rise.

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