Climate Panel Should Change Management

The UN climate-science agency that was criticized for errors in forecasting when glaciers in the Himalayas may melt should “fundamentally change its management structure,” a review of the Nobel Prize-winning body said.

The United Nations-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should appoint an executive director and name an executive committee with members from outside the group and who aren’t part of the climate-science community, the Amsterdam- based InterAcademy Council said today on its website.

The review by economists and scientists at the council was called for in March by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after errors on glacier melt rates and flooding were flagged in 2010 by readers, more than two years after the IPCC published an assessment that said scientists were more than 90 percent certain that humans are causing global warming.

The recommendations “will help bolster confidence in the IPCC,” Jennifer Morgan, program director for climate and energy at the Washington-based World Resources Institute, said in a statement. “Around the world, we are witnessing the types of events consistent with climate models. The world must now focus on the serious business of finding practical solutions to the climate crisis.”

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