cc: John Ashton <john.ashton@co2.org>, chris.anastasi@british-energy.com, Peter Stott <peter.stott@metoffice.com>, m.hulme@uea.ac.uk, "'Jenkins, Geoff'" <geoff.jenkins@metoffice.com>, michael.grubb@imperial.ac.uk, V.McGregor@uea.ac.uk, "'Cox, Peter'" <peter.cox@metoffice.com>, N.W.Arnell@soton.ac.uk, King MPST <MPST.KING@dti.gsi.gov.uk>
date: Thu, 24 Jun 2004 10:29:59 +0100
from: Sir John Houghton <john.houghton@jri.org.uk>
subject: Re: Yuri Izrael
to: Nick.Grout@dti.gsi.gov.uk

<x-flowed>
NOT TO BE COPIED ON PLEASE

Just a note re Yuri Izrael whom I have known well for 25 years or so 
both in the WMO and the IPCC. He is a chairman's nightmare in that he 
is extremely persistent, wants to dominate and even in very large 
meetings succeeds in talking for
up to one third of the time (I have calculated the proportion more than 
once when sitting in meetings!). He is  not generally well informed but 
he likes to press extremely hard for a few points (he has a very high 
personal ego)
- sometimes they are relevant sometimes not. If he fails to get his way 
he is extremely persistent and repetitive. A common  tactic in meetings 
is to speak so often and so long that time and opportunity  for others 
is severely reduced.

I gather he has cancelled going to an important IPCC meeting in Geneva 
(he is still a Vice Chair of the IPCC) in order to be present at our 
meeting in Moscow. For him to cancel a meeting  in Geneva implies that 
he has some clear reason
and a strong personal agenda for the Moscow meeting.

For the IPCC 1990 Report he was the Chair of Working Group 2 on 
Impacts. So he reckons to know about Impacts and we have gathered so 
far he intends to lead on Impacts in Moscow.
I suspect much of what he knows about Impacts now may well be based on 
the 1990 Report! - he has never kept up with the science and doesn't do 
a lot of homework.

For instance in the 'Izrael' document he says rather little about 
impacts except to emphasise their great uncertainty (a substantial 1990 
emphasis) and to mention  CO2 and bioproductivity  (also in 1990 
report) and  other positive impacts
  especially for Russia. I suspect he will home in on these points about 
great uncertainty and positive impacts in his presentation to us.

May I suggest that Mike and Nigel might look at the 1990 Impacts report 
to see where Izrael might be coming from and include mention of the 
large advances in Impacts work over the last decade and how 
uncertainties have been reduced for
instance in our understanding of CO2 fertilization and its limitations.

Best wishes

John



</x-flowed>
