Appendix: Government response
Introduction
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
is the leading international body for the assessment of climate
change. It is a scientific body under the auspices of the United
Nations (UN). It reviews and assesses the most recent scientific,
technical and socio-economic information produced worldwide relevant
to the understanding of climate change. It does not conduct any
research nor does it monitor climate related data or parameters.
The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) provides an up
to date view of the state of scientific knowledge relevant to
climate change. Working Group I contribution provides a comprehensive
assessment of the physical science basis of climate change. The
report includes a detailed assessment of climate change observations
throughout the climate system; dedicated chapters on sea level
change, biogeochemical cycles, clouds and aerosols, and regional
climate phenomena; extensive information from models, including
near-term and long-term climate projections; and a new comprehensive
atlas of global and regional climate projections for 35 regions
of the world.
We are very grateful to the Energy and Climate Change
Select Committee (ECC) for conducting its inquiry into Working
Group I's contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC,
and for its report of that inquiry, published on 29th July 2014.
This memorandum is the Government's formal response
to the report. In the following sections we provide the committee's
recommendations in bold italics followed by the Government response.
Recommendation 1
The IPCC has continued to strengthen and improve
its Assessment Report procedure. The IPCC has put a series of
measures in place to help to minimise the risk of errors creeping
in, and quickly rectify them if they emerge. The IPCC has responded
extremely well to the constructive criticism of the InterAcademy
Council (IAC). With regard to the IAC's recommendations, we would
like to see the appointment of non-climate scientists to the Executive
Committee. (para 10, section 2)
The Government is pleased to note that the IPCC's
positive response to the IAC, agreed at its 33rd session in 2011,
has been recognised by the committee. With regard to this specific
recommendation, although the UK supported it, there was no consensus
amongst the member governments. We note that the IPCC is committed
to reviewing the terms of reference, the composition and the mode
of operation of the Executive Committee before the formation of
the next Bureau (in 2015) (this was agreed at the IPCC's 33rd
session). This presents an opportunity to revisit the issue of
external members. It could also be taken up in the current internal
IPCC review of its future processes and activities.
Recommendation 2
For future Assessment Reports the Government
should recommend to the IPCC that they recruit a small team of
experts who are not climate scientists to observe the review process
from start to finish. The team would not constitute an extra stage
of review, but rather oversee the process and arbitrate when controversies
arise. The testimony of this independent team would improve the
credibility of the report when it is released, and potentially
protect it from any unnecessary and unfounded criticism. The team
could also feed back to the IPCC in order to facilitate continuous
improvement. (para 12, section 2)
We consider that the IPCC process already allows
for dealing with controversies. Such a team would duplicate the
role of the Review Editors, whose remit is described in Appendix
A to the IPCC procedures. It says Review Editors will "ensure
that all substantive expert and government review comments are
afforded appropriate consideration, advise lead authors on how
to handle contentious/controversial issues and ensure genuine
controversies are reflected adequately in the text of the Report."
As part of the review of its products and processes,
the IPCC has sought the opinions of authors and review editors
involved in the AR5. This will provide an opportunity for recent
participants to feed back to the IPCC and facilitate continuous
improvement based on their experiences.
Recommendation 3
There are mixed views regarding the frequency
and size of IPCC Assessment Reports. Transition to smaller, more
frequent reports would arguably relieve the burden on contributing
authors and ensure policymakers were kept up to date, but the
finished document would lack the comprehensive and authoritative
nature of the current Assessment Reports. Any revision of the
tried and tested IPCC formula should only be introduced after
careful consultation with both the governments who use the IPCC
reviews and the scientists who write them. The aftermath of AR5
is an optimum time for this period of reflection to take place.
(para 26 section 2)
The government agrees that this is an optimum time
to review the IPCC's products and processes, and that any revision
of the tried and trusted formula should only be introduced after
careful consultation. Such consultation, with governments and
authors, is already underway. The UK submitted its views to the
IPCC early in 2014 and continues to participate in the work of
the IPCC Task Group which is taking forward the IPCC's review
of its products and processes.
Recommendation 4
We recommend that the Government call on the
IPCC to introduce a greater level of transparency in the plenary
meetings to agree future Summaries for Policymakers (SPM). This
may be through the admission of the independent team of observers
to oversee the discussions (see paragraph 12). The feedback from
the team would then serve to provide reassurance that the summary-writing
process has been carried out objectively. (para 33 section 2)
The Government considers IPCC plenary meetings to
be sufficiently transparent already, through the presence of a
number of observer organisations. There are 62 non-governmental
organisations who are approved observers; there are also several
inter-governmental and UN observer organisations.
They are listed at: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ipcc-principles/ipcc_observers.pdf
and the criteria for their selection and approval are given at:
http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_procedures.shtml
We consider that this wide range of observer organisations
should provide reassurance that the process has been carried out
transparently.
Furthermore, the International Institute for Sustainable
Development (IISD) reports every day during the sessions of the
IPCC through its Earth Negotiations Bulletin. The IISD aims to
provide a "neutral, authoritative and up-to-the-minute record
of on-going multilateral negotiations on environment and sustainable
development."
The government considers the ENB reports to be a
valuable independent record of IPCC meetings. They provide an
important conduit of information to non-participants, and we support
this contribution to the IPCC's transparency.
Recommendation 5
In the light of the WGI contribution to AR5,
the Government should commission a strategic review of UK modelling
facilities to discern how current computing capacity could be
used more effectively to reduce remaining uncertainties. The review
should highlight areas of potential national and international
collaboration between modelling centres and any funding shortfalls
that need to be met (para 65 section 3).
The government shares the committee's concern that
computing capacity should be used effectively. We have carried
out a number of reviews of the Met Office Hadley Centre (MOHC)
programme, to ensure that it offers both value for money and provides
the science the government needs. In addition the programme is
overseen by a Science Review Group, whose role is to ensure that
the programme provides the best possible advice on the scientific
aspects of climate change to government.
The Met Office High Performance Computer is a shared
facility, which enables the scientific community to work jointly
on a single supercomputing platform sharing the same codes and
exploiting the same data, encouraging collaboration and more effective
multi-disciplinary interaction and integration. This Joint work
is coordinated through two managed programmes — the Met
Office Academic Partnership (Met Office and Universities of Exeter,
Leeds, Oxford and Reading) and the Joint Weather and Climate Research
Programme (comprising Met Office and NERC scientists) —
as well as with international partners.
Spending Round 2013 committed to funding high priority
science infrastructure projects including a new High Performance
Computer for the Met Office. Subject to approval of the business
case, this will provide a strategic UK asset to exploit UK excellence
in environmental science and deliver significant socio-economic
benefits as new and existing science is exploited. Amongst other
things, this capability will allow a better understanding of uncertainty
in the climate system, through multiple realisations of climate
runs.
Uncertainty in the Met Office climate model is one
of the key areas of science that the MOHC programme focuses on.
However, whilst sufficient computing resources are of course needed,
it is also a scientific problem, requiring a better understanding
of the physical processes that determine climate. Such understanding
requires other resources including observations of the climate
system. It is important to note that uncertainty is not the only
key area of science that needs to be addressed. We address all
the science requirements of the MOHC programme together.
Furthermore, the uncertainties in projected future
climate are currently dominated by the uncertainties in future
emissions; this requires improved understanding in other domains,
as well as a global binding agreement.
In parallel we (DECC and Defra) will continue to
consult the UK modelling and wider scientific community on the
future development of climate modelling and on how the benefits
of greater national and international collaboration may be realised.
Recommendation 6
The Government should ensure that the report
it has commissioned to look at the benefits and opportunities
in tackling climate change, The New Climate Economy, considers
evidence about the costs of climate change to business. We believe
that this report should be peer reviewed to avoid attracting the
same criticism that was made of the Stern Review (para 70 section
4).
The New Climate Economy (NCE) is the flagship project
of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. This Commission
was established by seven countries (UK, Sweden, Norway, South
Korea, Indonesia, Ethiopia, and Colombia) and was given an independent
mandate to provide objective and authoritative evidence about
how to achieve economic prosperity and development while also
combating climate change.
This project has a wide evidence base, including
responses to a call for evidence and contributing papers subject
to peer-review and quality assurance processes. The Global Commission's
report received advice from its Economic Advisory Panel (EAP)
of world-leading economists and was reviewed by individuals from
around 100 organisations. This project is expected to be a comprehensive
look at the evidence of all the costs and benefits associated
with climate action, including the costs to business.
Recommendation 7
The WGI contribution to AR5 re-affirms the
scientific underpinning of the Climate Change Act 2008 and hence
the UK's ambitious greenhouse gas emission reductions targets.
We believe that there is merit in considering embedded carbon
emissions alongside territorial emissions in the policy making
process (para 75 section 4).
The Government, in common with the Committee on Climate
Change (CCC) considers that we should continue to report emissions
on a territorial basis as is the convention internationally. It
does agree however that there is merit in also calculating embedded
emissions as a means promoting global action on climate change.
The Government is already committed to monitoring consumption
emissions data and to publishing it on a regular basis, at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uks-carbon-footprint
The CCC's report on reducing the UK's carbon footprint
and managing competitiveness risks was published on 14 April 2013.
It concluded that "it remains appropriate to account for
carbon budgets on the basis of production emissions given accounting
conventions and available policy levers. However, consumption
emissions should be monitored to check whether these are falling
in line with global action required to achieve the climate objective,
or whether further action is required."
The CCC also concluded that "moving to a consumption-based
accounting methodology would be disruptive and impractical given
international accounting conventions (which are based on territorial
emissions and aim to avoid double-counting) and uncertainties
over measuring and projecting consumption emissions". The
Government supports this.
Recommendation 8
The Government should provide an explicit commitment
on the involvement of senior figures in the early stages of the
Paris COP 2015. Senior Government members should be actively involved
in the strategy for obtaining a global climate deal. The early
commitment of the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer
and DECC ministers to the preliminary stages of the global climate
negotiations will encourage other world leaders to similarly get
involved (para 79 section 4).
This Government is strongly committed to action on
climate change and to securing a global climate deal in Paris
in 2015. DECC's Secretary of State has attended a number of international
ministerial climate change meetings this year, as well as undertaking
a bilateral travel programme including many of the key Parties
to the UNFCCC. We will, as usual, be represented at Senior Ministerial
level at the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Peru in December
2014. On 23 September 2014, the UN Secretary General engaged world
leaders at a climate summit in New York in September — the
first meeting of leaders focused solely on climate change since
Copenhagen in 2009—and the UK was represented by the Prime
Minister and DECC's Secretary of State and Parliamentary Under
Secretary of State.
Recommendation 9
The implications of the report for policy-makers
in the UK are simple: there is no scientific basis for downgrading
the UK's ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is imperative
that this message is also understood by the international community.
The Government must renew its commitment to achieve a global deal
on climate change. (para 83 section 5)
The Government remains firmly committed to achieving
a global deal on climate change. We must agree a regime that keeps
us on track to deliver the UNFCCC's ultimate goal: to avoid dangerous
climate change by limiting global average temperature increase
to no more than 2°C above preindustrial levels. The most
cost-effective and reliable way to achieve this is through an
international, legally binding agreement with mitigation commitments
for all. Our commitment is set out in detail in the government
document "Paris 2015: Securing Future Prosperity Through
a Global Climate Change Agreement", published on Tuesday
9 September 2014 (and placed in the Library of the House), including
the Government's vision for the new global deal to be agreed in
Paris in 2015, why this is so important for the UK public and
business, and an assessment of the key challenges facing us.
Conclusion
This memorandum forms the Government's response to
the recommendations set out in the Committee's report: Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report: Review of Working
Group I contribution. The Government will continue to support
the work of the IPCC, to support participation by UK scientists
in the IPCC, and will work to improve IPCC's products to meet
the needs of stakeholders. It will also continue to support scientific
research into the nature and risks of climate change and pursue
policies both domestically and internationally which are aimed
at avoiding dangerous levels of climate change.
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