The politics may be settled, but the science isn't

From the Guardian.

The IPCC says its reports are policy relevant, but not policy prescriptive. Perhaps unknown to many people, the process is started and finished not by scientists but by political officials, who steer the way the information is presented in so-called summary for policymakers [SPM] chapters. Is that right, the Guardian asked?

"The Nobel prize was for peace not science ... government employees will use it to negotiate changes and a redistribution of resources. It is not a scientific analysis of climate change," said Anton Imeson, a former IPCC lead author from the Netherlands. "For the media, the IPCC assessments have become an icon for something they are not. To make sure that it does not happen again, the IPCC should change its name and become part of something else. The IPCC should have never allowed itself to be branded as a scientific organisation. It provides a review of published scientific papers but none of this is much controlled by independent scientists."

William Connolley, a former climate modeller with the British Antarctic Survey, said: "I think it is inevitable that there will be enormous and pointless fighting over the exact wording of the SPM. And [that is] to some extent, desirable. The science is done by the scientists. The SPM headlines, that the politicians are going to have to act on, will have some political spin, and before the sceptics run wild, let me add that the spin so far has always been in the toning-things-down direction. [It would be better] written just by scientists, but too hard to manage to be worth wasting much time about."