date: Thu Jul  5 21:31:43 2001
from: Mike Hulme <m.hulme@uea.ac.uk>
subject: Re: Lindzen Op-ed in WSJ
to: "Tobias, Jose  A" <TobiasJA@state.gov>

   Dear Tobias,
   Thanks for these two OpEds.  It was good to meet you in Paris.  I have posted some
   information about the UK climate change programme which sets out how it will achieve 20%
   reductions by 2010.
   Regards,
   Mike
   At 16:05 27/06/01 +0200, you wrote:

     Scientists' Report
       Doesn't Support
       The Kyoto Treaty
       By Richard S. Lindzen
       06/11/2001
       The Wall Street Journal
       Page A22
       (Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
       Last week the National Academy of Sciences released a report on
       climate change, prepared in response to a request from the White
       House, that was depicted in the press as an implicit endorsement of
       the Kyoto Protocol. CNN's Michelle Mitchell was typical of the
       coverage when she declared that the report represented "a
       unanimous decision that global warming is real, is getting worse, and
       is due to man. There is no wiggle room."
       As one of 11 scientists who prepared the report, I can state that this
       is simply untrue. For starters, the NAS never asks that all participants
       agree to all elements of a report, but rather that the report represent
       the span of views. This the full report did, making clear that there is
       no consensus, unanimous or otherwise, about long-term climate
       trends and what causes them.
       As usual, far too much public attention was paid to the hastily
       prepared summary rather than to the body of the report. The
       summary began with a zinger -- that greenhouse gases are
       accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities,
       causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures
       to rise, etc., before following with the necessary qualifications. For
       example, the full text noted that 20 years was too short a period for
       estimating long-term trends, but the summary forgot to mention this.
       Our primary conclusion was that despite some knowledge and
       agreement, the science is by no means settled. We are quite
       confident (1) that global mean temperature is about 0.5 degrees
       Celsius higher than it was a century ago; (2) that atmospheric levels
       of carbon dioxide have risen over the past two centuries; and (3) that
       carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas whose increase is likely to warm
       the earth (one of many, the most important being water vapor and
       clouds).
       But -- and I cannot stress this enough -- we are not in a position to
       confidently attribute past climate change to carbon dioxide or to
       forecast what the climate will be in the future. That is to say,
       contrary to media impressions, agreement with the three basic
       statements tells us almost nothing relevant to policy discussions.
       One reason for this uncertainty is that, as the report states, the
       climate is always changing; change is the norm. Two centuries ago,
       much of the Northern Hemisphere was emerging from a little ice
       age. A millennium ago, during the Middle Ages, the same region was
       in a warm period. Thirty years ago, we were concerned with global
       cooling.
       Distinguishing the small recent changes in global mean temperature
       from the natural variability, which is unknown, is not a trivial task. All
       attempts so far make the assumption that existing computer climate
       models simulate natural variability, but I doubt that anyone really
       believes this assumption.
       We simply do not know what relation, if any, exists between global
       climate changes and water vapor, clouds, storms, hurricanes, and
       other factors, including regional climate changes, which are generally
       much larger than global changes and not correlated with them. Nor
       do we know how to predict changes in greenhouse gases. This is
       because we cannot forecast economic and technological change over
       the next century, and also because there are many man-made
       substances whose properties and levels are not well known, but
       which could be comparable in importance to carbon dioxide.
       What we do is know that a doubling of carbon dioxide by itself would
       produce only a modest temperature increase of one degree Celsius.
       Larger projected increases depend on "amplification" of the carbon
       dioxide by more important, but poorly modeled, greenhouse gases,
       clouds and water vapor.
       The press has frequently tied the existence of climate change to a
       need for Kyoto. The NAS panel did not address this question. My
       own view, consistent with the panel's work, is that the Kyoto Protocol
       would not result in a substantial reduction in global warming. Given
       the difficulties in significantly limiting levels of atmospheric carbon
       dioxide, a more effective policy might well focus on other greenhouse
       substances whose potential for reducing global warming in a short
       time may be greater.
       The panel was finally asked to evaluate the work of the United
       Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, focusing on the
       Summary for Policymakers, the only part ever read or quoted. The
       Summary for Policymakers, which is seen as endorsing Kyoto, is
       commonly presented as the consensus of thousands of the world's
       foremost climate scientists. Within the confines of professional
       courtesy, the NAS panel essentially concluded that the IPCC's
       Summary for Policymakers does not provide suitable guidance for the
       U.S. government.
       The full IPCC report is an admirable description of research activities
       in climate science, but it is not specifically directed at policy. The
       Summary for Policymakers is, but it is also a very different
       document. It represents a consensus of government representatives
       (many of whom are also their nations' Kyoto representatives), rather
       than of scientists. The resulting document has a strong tendency to
       disguise uncertainty, and conjures up some scary scenarios for which
       there is no evidence.
       Science, in the public arena, is commonly used as a source of
       authority with which to bludgeon political opponents and propagandize
       uninformed citizens. This is what has been done with both the reports
       of the IPCC and the NAS. It is a reprehensible practice that corrodes
       our ability to make rational decisions. A fairer view of the science
       will show that there is still a vast amount of uncertainty -- far more
       than advocates of Kyoto would like to acknowledge -- and that the
       NAS report has hardly ended the debate. Nor was it meant to.
       ---
       Mr. Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at MIT, was a member of
       the National Academy of Sciences panel on climate change.
     Copyright  2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
     Jose A. Tobias
     Office of Environmental, Scientific,
     and Technological Affairs
     U.S. Embassy - Paris
     Tel: (33)-1-43-12-25-89
     Fax: (33)-1-43-12-29-41
     e-mail: tobiasja@state.gov
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