Policy Impact of IPCC Misdirection

In Australia yesterday, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong gave a speech is which she discussed the claims that the IPCC had misrepresented the science of disaster costs and climate change. She stated:

Another claim is that the IPCC exaggerated economic losses from catastrophes attributed to climate change.

The IPCC has described these claims as “misleading and baseless". The scientist has gone on the record to say his peer-reviewed scientific paper was correctly represented in the IPCC report.

Presumably, the "scientist" that she refers to is Robert Muir-Wood. In the paper that Wong refers to, Muir-Wood and colleagues write:

We find insufficient evidence to claim a statistical relationship between global temperature increase and normalized catastrophe losses.

If Wong thinks that paper suggests a linkage between rising temperatures and catastrophes, then that is pretty good evidence that the IPCC did not in fact accurately represent the paper. It is interesting how the issue is now about how a paper was represented, and not the science of disasters and climate change.

Muir-Wood also confirms that the IPCC intentionally miscited another paper in order to include a graph that he says,

. . . could be misinterpreted and should not have been included in these materials.

Obviously, from Wong's remarks misinterpretation is more than just a possibility. The IPCC also made up stuff about my views and ignored its reviewers who explained that the graph was misleading and should be reviewed.

The bottom line is that there is no scientific evidence linking rising global temperatures to the increasing catastrophe losses around the world. Ironically enough, the scientific evidence includes the paper cited by Wong to suggest the opposite. Despite this fact, and the obvious IPCC misrepresentations on this subject, Australia's Penny Wong concludes:

There may well be dispute about the cost of catastrophes, but the science on the link between these catastrophes and climate change has not been credibly challenged.

Score that as one fully duped policy maker by the IPCC's spin and misdirection.