News & Events

Home > News & Events > Press Release

Climate Change Assessment Criticism Ill-founded

12 April 2007

A University Of Otago reviewer has labeled yesterday’s criticism of climate change impact assessment on New Zealand and Australia as ‘ill-founded’ and ‘celebrity hand waving’.

“It is a great shame that the media has confused celebrity with integrity by relaying uninformed sweeping generalisations by a climate change critic. This devalues the enormous hard work of an international team of expert climate change scientists and their peers” said Assoc. Prof. Henrik Moller, from the University of Otago’s Centre for Study of Agriculture Food & Environment.

A/Prof. Moller was reacting to assertions by Mr Augie Auer, spokesman for the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition, that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment process was ‘led by alarmists’ that ‘have no way of determining what is happening’.

A/Prof. Moller was the New Zealand ‘Review Editor’ of the chapter on climate change impacts on Australia and New Zealand for the IPCC’s assessment, undertaken for the United Nations. He, and an Australia counterpart, oversaw the selection of more than 50 independent experts from Australia and New Zealand to review the 49 page ‘first order draft’ written by15 expert co-authors.  A/Prof. Moller then worked with the 8 senior authors to go through each of 1376 specific comments that were received on the draft of the chapter.  A careful assessment of any disputed evidence and conclusions on climate change impacts was recorded and the chapter modified where justified. A ‘second order draft’ was then sent back to all the original reviewers and additional scientists and government officials, to have them further check the validity of the assessment and that any criticisms had been adequately dealt with.

“This is the most thorough scientific peer review process I have ever participated in” said A/Prof. Moller.
“There were weeks of work by a dedicated and professional team that repeatedly went back over the review comments, to make sure that substantiated criticisms and uncertainty were acknowledged and acted upon”.

“There will always be scientific uncertainty when predicting something as complex as climate and the associated responses of New Zealand ecosystems, agriculture, economy, and society. I am satisfied that the IPCC process was as thorough, transparent, fair and objective as humanly possible to minimise uncertainty and paint an unbiased picture” said A/Prof Moller.

“I urge climate change cynics to confront their own ethical responsibility to acknowledge the substantive risks to New Zealanders, to their livelihoods and to natural ecosystems as a consequence of climate change.  Ignoring a tidal wave of evidence and sound scientific inference that climate change is real and ongoing puts lives and livelihoods at risk. It may also slow adoption of sensible and realisable adaptation strategies that can simultaneously capture the benefits of some aspects of climate change for New Zealand, while minimising controllable and unwanted impacts” said A/Prof. Moller.

“It is regrettable that someone as potentially influential as Mr Auger has come to such a provocative and ill-informed conclusion about the IPCC assessment, without contributing any new scholarly evidence to counter the huge body of considered information incorporated into the IPCC’s recent climate change assessment”. 

“Such unsubstantiated claims amount to celebrity hand waving.  This does little to inform a public debate from which New Zealand has so much to lose or gain” said Assoc. Prof. Henrik Moller.

Ends

---

For further information please contact:

Associate Professor Henrik Moller, Co-Director, Centre for Study Of Agriculture Food & Environment, University of Otago: Email: henrik.moller@stonebow.otago.ac.nz; Phone: 027 2268688 (Mobile), 03 473 0024 (Private), 03 479 5327 (Office).

Top of Page