Guest post by David Holland
By chance I happened upon a guest blog post by Tim Osborn a few days ago. Its not the way I found it, but if you google "david holland site:climate-lab-book.ac.uk" it is at the top of list today. If you click on the link you get an error message but, as I write this, if you click the down arrow after the link you see the cached version, as of 15 November, which apart from my comment copied below is, I think, how it was when I last saw it.
Tim was reporting on the fact the First Tier Tribunal had upheld the Met Office refusal to disclose any and all historic Zero Order Drafts of any IPCC assessment. I will let BH Readers comment upon the post, but I did not object to it, as I thought Tim came off second best. Perhaps someone leant upon Ed and maybe on balance it could have been wise to snip any comments that were inappropriate. However, to remove without trace of it, a published controversial blog is emblematic of the concerns I have with climate science. Only squeaky-clean consensus views get, or remain, published.
On 18 November, the Upper Tribunal agreed to hear my application for permission to appeal, which will be heard in London next year and I will let you know date and venue when I have it. My comment at Climate Lab Book, which was made after the cached copy, is:
David Holland November 22, 2015 at 6:29 pm
Tim,
It might be a bit soon to signal the end of requests for environmental information on the IPCC assessments. The MO case could end up as marking the end of routine refusals. As I am sure you know that the First Tier Tribunal decisions are not binding and this case has yet to be heard by the Upper Tribunal, the decision of which is binding upon the parties in the UK, but can considered by the Compliance Committee of the Aarhus Convention, which has previously reprimanded several Parties including the UK
The UK transposition of the Convention and Directive into UK law is in error in some important respects such as the ‘emissions rule’, and the application of the regulations. There can be no dispute but that the raison d’être of the IPCC is to relate human emissions of CO2 to global temperature. In its 2012 report to the Council and the European Parliament, the Commission described the ‘emissions rule’ as the “legal presumption that the public interest served by disclosure prevails if the request relates to emissions into the environment”.