Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) definitely lost some of its authority after some mistakes, most notably the statement that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035, were discovered as this gave plenty of ammo to climate change sceptics and fossil fuel lobbies.Media was very quick to react on this, and these mistakes are certainly one of the reasons why the number of climate change skeptics has somewhat increased in the last couple of months or so.
Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, recently admitted this error by naming it "human failure" that shouldn't have happened. Some media has already labeled IPCC's reports as "grey literature" describing them as something that doesn't have the necessary scientific background, and is more subject of speculation rather than actual science.
Mistakes can always happen we all know that but this was rather big mistake that has come in the totally wrong time. Why? Because world still needs to agree on new climate deal, and any doubt about climate change will be heavily used by politicians and fossil fuel lobbies to further delay this necessary agreement.
The damage has been done, and we are talking about significant damage, and from now on many will question IPCC's reports despite the fact that overall looking glaciers are indeed in serious decline.
IPCC has to make sure there are no more mistakes of such magnitude because one more mistake like this and this once very respected body can kiss its authority goodbye. Climate change is very delicate political issue, and science needs to be conclusive, comprehensive, and of course free of speculations.
These statements in the Ar4 report were not errors or mistakes, they were put there intentionally. They were put in the report to generate climate action through fear, the public realizes this now. Over the past 3 years, these claimes went unchallenged and the IPCC said all of their claims were peer reviewed. Now it turns out that about 30% were not peer reviewed. No matter what Pauchari says, the credibility of the UN IPCC has been damaged beyond repair. He should step down just as a start, then the UN IPCC should be disbanded.
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