Bishop Hill IPCC brings down the shutters
Apr 26, 2011 Climate: IPCC FOI As many readers know, the guiding principles of the IPCC are that it should be open and transparent, a sentiment that I'm sure we all find admirable.
David Holland has been trying to find out about how Pachauri et al are implementing this principle in the Fifth Assessment, which is now under way. To that end he has been seeking copies of IPCC correspondence with its UK-based authors. He has recently had a reply from the University of Oxford:
As regards the information under a) above, relating to the development of the content of AR5, the University recognises that there is a public interest that the results of the AR5 should be available for public scrutiny. However, it considers that this need will be met largely through the future publication of the final AR5, together with the comments of the Expert Reviewers and the responses of the Lead Authors to those comments. It sees little or no public interest in the release of information relating to what is very much work in progress. Indeed, disclosure could harm the quality of the drafting process by inhibiting the free and frank expression of opinion. The scientists involved in AR5 need to feel that they can develop and refine their views without the pressure of public discussion at each and every step of the process. Disclosure of the information requested, and any consequent publicity, would be likely to inhibit the frankness of their views and deliberations, and to make them more cautious and less candid than they would otherwise be. This would not be in the public interest. Nor would it be in the public interest to deter scientists from participating in this type of work or to reduce the breadth of scientific expertise available to the IPCC or other international organisations involved in climate change.
Reader Comments (43)
Suggestion to Josh
Deep dark cave with sign over -- AR5 Working Group. Large wild looking dog named "mike" snapping at viewer. Several angry looking eyes staring out of the cave at viewer.
Title : Transparency in Developing AR5.
It's funny how the "public" seldom gets to decide what is in the "public interest". What we, the public, DO know is that closed door discussions on subjects that ultimately affect us, are SELDOM in our interest.
Excuse me.
It's not up to the University of Oxford to interpret the law and declare that FOI interests will be better served by AR5. Neither is it the University's job to decide what the public interest is.
Their job is to obey the law regarding FOI. Nothing else.
Politicians make law not university administrators, or scientists.
The reason that they are getting so much public interest is because what they have produced thus far has not been in the public interest. How is it that these academics, who lets face it are usually completely inept when it comes to the real world, always seem to know what is best for everyone?
Before you all get very excited, I can assure you that the correspondence of IPCC WG2 to its (convening) lead authors has been (a) very limited and (b) very dull.
The only notable bits are a letter from Pachauri and the new CoI policy.
The first was leaked, see http://ipccar5wg2ch10.blogspot.com/2010/07/letter-from-pachauri.html. The second was leaked too, see http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/04/ipccs-proposed-coi-policy.html
Other communication has been about meetings, websites, work allocation and so on.
The outline is available at http://www.ipcc.ch/. There is no text yet.
They should just take out a super injunction /sarc
"Trust us. We're experts."
Environmental information regulations normally require that a public authority must apply a "presumption in favour of disclosure”. In particular it will not be sufficient that the public see the finished document: they will need to be confident that the IPCC has been doing its job properly. Considering all of the comments previously made about the IPCC by previous lead authors and the like, this is not going to happen without adequate scrutiny of the decision-making process.
Richard
I think there is at least a possibility that the WG1 stuff might be more interesting.
Committee work dull? Surely not :)
Meeting and work allocation is of interest though given criticisms that some delegates may not be pulling their weight and others may have undue influence. As Donna Laframboise points out
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2011/04/25/wwfs-chief-spokesperson-joins-ipcc/
"But the IPCC, it has been observed, is a slow learner. If this were not the case there’s no way it would have appointed Jennifer Morgan as an AR5 review editor.
...According to IPCC mythology, those involved in this historic report-writing exercise are the world’s top scientists and best experts. Morgan is a perfect example of how this is utter nonsense. For several years she was the WWF’s chief spokesperson on climate change."
Why not make all the information available if it is so mundane?
David Holland,
If you are reading, could you please point to what the response to item (1) was?
Namely, their response to this bit:
OFF Topic but can you help
Phil Bratby over at Watts has posted some Climategate emails relating to Fellowship of the AGU:-
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/25/ben-santer-elected-agu-fellow/
The following email is interesting because it discusses meeting "at an exotic location of Henry's choosing.(Wink)"
Any Idea what Mann means?
May 16, 2009: email 1242749575
Mann to Jones:
On a completely unrelated note, I was wondering if you, perhaps in tandem with some of the other usual suspects, might be interested in returning the favor (of being awarded a Fellowship of the American Geophysical Union) this year (wink)?
I’ve looked over the current list of American Geophysical Union Fellows, and it seems to me that there are quite a few who have gotten in (e.g. Kurt Cuffey, Amy Clement, and many others) who aren’t as far along as me in their careers, so I think I ought to be a strong candidate.
Anyway, I don’t want to pressure you in any way, but if you think you’d be willing to help organize, I would naturally be much obliged. Perhaps you could convince Ray or Malcolm to take the lead? The deadline looks as if it is again July 1 this year.
I’m looking forward to catching up with you some time soon, probably at some exotic location of Henry’s choosing (wink).
Will the Hockey Stick be reappearing in AR5?
They are damned if it does, and laughing stocks if it doesn't
It's a bit like the theory that giving rich people more money makes them work harder wheras giving poor people less money makes them work harder. In the business sector pressure makes the workers focus and public discussion at every step improves quality. In the academic and public sectors the reverse is presumed.
It may be that many academics will lack confidence in their ability to perform to the required standard but it cannot be in the public interest that these very academics should participate in the IPCC process. This argument is self serving and deserving of review by the ICO who can decide if laxity is likely to produce a better product.
So now we know that no pressure at all was felt by the climategate leaks on the AGW promotion industry.
They are convinced they have gotten away with it.
If there is a public interest I do believe that ongoing views and deliberations are subject to FOIA.
As we have seen with Climategate the prejudicial views and deliberations of a small group of scientists did have a major impact on AR4.
The IPCC cannot afford to have a repeat of Climagate - openess and transparency are fundamental to AR5.
Mac, I think the only lesson they have learnt from Climategate, is to be more careful about what they send to and from work e-mail addresses
O/T for Stacey:
The email is taken from John Costella's Climategate email analysis at http://assassinationscience.com/climategate/. The full email is at http://assassinationscience.com/climategate/1/FOIA/mail/1242749575.txt. I don't know who Henry is.
I'm afraid I'm rather on their side here. I wouldn't want to be a scientist working on the basis that every time I send an email to anyone, at whatever stage of the work-in-progress, I have to pass it through a mental compliance department. I don't think FoI was designed for that, and I wouldn't want to be subject to it. I thought some of the reasons given in the refusal by CRU to McIntyre in his recent post also read reasonably. Universities, when responding to requests, are quite entitled to make a public interest judgement, which can then be appealed.
Perhaps Richard Tol could tell us how he feels on that subject?
Surely the headline should read " University of Oxford brings down the shutters "
Poor, shy, shrinking-violet-like scientists!
But perhaps they're scared that their public renommee might suffer if everybody got to know what they get up to behind closed doors - not because of the science, mind, but because of the language they use. Think Nixon, Watergate and the secret tapes, full of deleted expletives ...
Roddy
In industry, it is accepted that emails and correspo0ndence and tapes of voice communications can be used as legal evidence. Why should it be different in the world of "science"?
Hengist
You have a point there.
Roddy Campbell
Tol just said that nothing much was going on wrt WG2 as yet.
Er, why?
Evening Bish,
".......Indeed, disclosure could harm the quality of the drafting process by inhibiting the free and frank expression of opinion. The scientists involved in AR5 need to feel that they can develop and refine their views without the pressure of public discussion at each and every step of the process. Disclosure of the information requested, and any consequent publicity, would be likely to inhibit the frankness of their views and deliberations ........"
Maybe I've got the wrong end of the stick here but what have: 'expression of opinion', 'refine their views' and 'frankness of their views' got to do with the scientific method?
Just asking
Dusty
Dusty
That's the interesting problem with the IPCC Reports. They are reviews, not primary science. Yet they are presented as 'the science'.
But along the way, lots of decisions are made (in camera) about what gets put in, and what gets left out.
This is part of what makes our host's book such an interesting read.
It's an interesting position. It's saying that material knowingly produced for public consumption would not be frank, candid, or incautious. What does that say about their public pronouncements?
@Roddy Campbell
All my work emails are subject to Access to Environmental Information. I knew that when I accepted the job.
@ZT
I would have no objection to making all this public. It would require different email software.
I'm sorry to go against the current this time.
If you are a superstar scientist you may not bother with this type of FOIA request. But if you are a postdoc or a research associate, as I once was, this type of request may ruin your life. Universities are already hyper-bureacratic places. There should be better ways of engaging some of the researchers on your cause, many of them are not unsympathetic anyway.
Richard (at 3:37),
I agree that 99% of what gets disclosed is very dull and uninteresting but it is worth while for the 1% that is.
The point of being open and transparent is that people think twice before taking liberties.
What would the reaction have been if the drafts of AR4, the consolidated Expert Review comments, Lead Authors responses and Review Editors Reports had been all been published at the time as they were finalised? What if Expert Reviewers were not bound by confidentiality?
Would the Lead Authors really have sent out the WGI Chapter 6 first draft without mentioning McIntyre & McKitrick 2005?
Would the Lead Authors of WGI Chapter 3 first draft have omitted McKitrick and Michaels 2004?
Would the Coordinating Lead Authors and Review Editors have let the WGII Chapter 10 Himalayan 2035 “error” go through?
I do not believe that any of these were mistakes. In the previous assessments no one bothered to check their comments after the event and see what happened to their comments, so the Lead Authors felt free to do as they pleased, including retrospectively changing the publication deadlines to allow their favourite papers to get cited.
"But if you are a postdoc or a research associate, as I once was, this type of request may ruin your life."
How come? The only way I can think of is when the university authorities come down on you for not having answered the question in the first place, and needing to be prompted with legal force when scientific ethics should have been sufficient.
Shub,
As I expected the answer to item 1 was "not held". Oxford did not agree to confidentiality. However WGI TSU are trying to impose it here:
https://www.ipcc-wg1.unibe.ch/guidancepaper/WG1_GuidanceNote_Confidentiality.pdf
We have the absurd claims, not just from Oxford, that publishing documents up to four years after the event meets the definition of being open and transparent and that keeping things confidential helps ensure that the assessment is open and transparent.
Why, for instance, should we not all see the "zero drafts" which are the starting points for AR5?
Why should we not see the WGI TSU document that says that Lead Authors can cite any paper so long as they are "accepted" three months after the Government and Expert Review Stage? See:
http://cmip-pcmdi.llnl.gov/cmip5/docs/IPCC_AR5_Timetable.pdf
Not really,
The bureaucrats at the uni will simply pass to you a hundred formulars to fill in all the correspondence in a neverending loop.
If you ask me to publish my (former) email password in any blog I will be happy to do so. If you ask the Uni to collect and pass my emails that will be many months of wasted time.
And don't get me wrong. I know quite a few IPCC leading authors, some of them are the equivalent of black holes in dishonesty density, and that is were you shoud be aiming, not to the poor fellows that will get all the extra ( and distractive) paperwork.
This is the Mission Statement of the IPCC
"The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change"
And here's the website info.
http://www.ipcc.ch/about/about.htm
PW
@David
As soon as AR5 is used for policy, all drafts and all correspondence will be in the public domain under EU and US FoI legislation. The IPCC leadership knows this, and is trying to prepare the IPCC authors for this -- recall that many hail from autocratic countries.
The IPCC is reluctant to release drafts because that would take away from the media splash in 2014. I think this is a silly reason. I expect that all first-order drafts will be leaked, and many zeroth or minus first drafts too. The top IPCC leaders do not quite understand this internet thingy. I have argued that it is better to control a release into the public domain than have your hand forced by leaks and courts, but I'm a small voice only.
Universities must be a different place.
I work in a government. My work can be, and sometimes is, queried by anyone at any time. All my correspondence is subject to FOI, and my working plans get reviewed by my managers whenever they are curious.
But I don't care, I do my work and it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Its not pressure to me, simply my work, which I stand behind. Sometimes I make mistakes which are costly, most times I don't. It is simply work.
I think they are way too precious about their work.
Richard,
Exactly! It is obvious why the IPCC writing teams want to keep the lid on and why some of us want to knock it off. The diference is the law says the lid should be off. If the science is sound it will survive public scutiny.
David
The reason (they give) is that, if their drafts are released, and per chance, if the drafts say anything different from the final, then the 'deniers' (us) would make a big deal out of it.
It was the same thing with Folland at the IPCC TAR meet (the deniers will say we don't understand anything) and the "hide the decline" trick (if we show adverse data, the deniers will say "hey, graph going down").
This leads immediately to the logical conclusion: any process requiring this sort of a behind-the-scenes incubation and skulduggery only means a case is being made for more than what is actually ought to be.
Recall the IAC comments. No one knows how lead authors are selected. Many scientists don't know what governments have to do at all with the reports. The IAC cannot release all comments submitted to its review. None working to put together the reports can release their correspondence to the public. The CRU and scientists connected with the Realclimate team want, prospectively, that their future correspondence be summarily exempt from information requests. The IPCC says it belongs to the UN, at times it is 'under' the UNEP, and there are times when it is an 'independent body' and there are times when it becomes an intergovernmental transnational panel. It answers to no one, 'it' does not even exist at all, at times.
There is no transparency here.
How, can the workings of producing a report with such ambitious policy implications, be considered to be subject to the privacy rights of those who put together the report, given that, the IPCC makes a big deal about transparency?
Clearly the IPCC and its affiliates must have "re-defined" the meaning of "transparency".without telling anyone!
O/T but somewhat related ... There's a fair bit of material on the IPCC site pertaining to the Agenda for the meeting next month in Abu Dhabi. [h/t Arthur Dent]
http://www.ipcc.ch/scripts/_session_template.php?page=_33ipcc.htm
Amongst which, I found:
http://www.ipcc.ch/meetings/session33/inf01_p33_review_report_tg_comments_gov.pdf
This latter link is to a 256 page pdf entitled “REVIEW OF THE IPCC PROCESSES AND PROCEDURES Comments from Governments and IPCC Office Holders on the initial draft recommendations prepared by the Task Groups (Submitted by the IPCC Secretariat)”
These "Task Groups" are those that were appointed to draft recommendations for IPCC implementation pursuant to the Review by the IAC.
As one who had participated in Donna's Citizen Audit, a year ago, I had a particular interest in the work of the "Procedures" Task Group (especially their recommendation(s) regarding use of grey literature). If this Task Group has its way, the IPCC will simply "disappear" one of their current "rules" because ...wait for it ...it's "too impractical".
[For all the gory details, pls see: IPCC and non-peer-reviewed sources: Task group says, ‘let’s disappear the rule’ and IPCC’s use of grey literature: To flag or not to flag, that is the question]
If the science is settled why do they need to worry about transparency?
Universities publish all manner of things, from handbooks to minutes of meetings, where decisions are made, all for public consumption and inspection.
Oxford University is no different in that regard.
It is interesting to note that one of the overriding aims of both governance and management in the University of Oxford is the preservation of academic freedom within the law, combined with academic responsibility.
Surely the level of interest in the ongoing views and deliberations of Oxford academics involved in IPCC-AR5 means that academic responsibility to the public outweighs any particular concerns over impinging on academic freedom on this particular matter.
Locking the doors and closing the curtains in academia's ivory towers is in no way going to convince a sceptical public. Those actions will turn scepticism into outright cynicism and hostility. Science can't afford to be viewed in that way.
Apr 26, 2011 at 4:49 PM | Stacey About exotic places
Apr 26, 2011 at 6:48 PM | Dusty On the meaning of words.
I'm having trouble understanding the significance of some expressions into Climategate and its consequences.
Try this, near the end.
From: Keith Briffa <k.briffa@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
To: Edward Cook <drdendro@xxxxxxxxx.xxx>
Subject: Re: Review- confidential
Date: Mon May 12 17:26:29 2003 1052774789.txt
Ed
just back from really sunny Austria and very pleasant south of France. Have talked at
length with Jan and he says it is fine to send the raw and detrended cores series
(segmented for each site if possible). Do you also have a convenient Table with the Lats
and Longs you used to plot the sites map? This would mean I don't have to look them all up.
I will phone to report on our discussions and ask several things that arose from these.
Just have to do essential other stuff first - so probably tuesday afternoon (my time) Do
you have that review yet?
love and kisses
Keith
'Not in the public interest'. Llike Dylan 'not offending Chinese sensibilities' by not performing The Times They Are A'Changing' in Beijing recently.
Beware of people defining your interest = totalitarians.
Lazlo