UNEP IPCC review

The Nusa Dua meeting of UN Environment Programme's (UNEP) Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum (what a mouthful!) has re-affirmed the central importance of the IPCC. It has also announced a review of the IPCC:

...as a result of recent criticism of the IPCC and some key errors in the body's fourth assessment report, several governments called for an independent review of the IPCC.

Full details of the review and its scope will be announced next week with the report to be presented to the IPCC Plenary taking place in the Republic of Korea in October.

It will be interesting to see the terms of reference and who is appointed to conduct the independent review. It will not be easy to find people of sufficient standing in climate science who have not been associated with the IPCC in some manner. In fact, this may prove impossible. However if the review is to focus solely on the review processes rather than the science itself, expertise in climate science may be of less consequence than expertise in science communication and management.

Nusa Dua Declaration - Toward a Green Economy

From the UN

Bali (Indonesia), 26 February 2010 - In the first landmark Declaration issued by ministers of the environment in a decade, governments pledged to step up the global response to the major environmental and sustainability challenges of this generation.

The wide-ranging Nusa Dua Declaration, agreed today in the closing session of the UN Environment Programme's (UNEP) Governing Council/Global Ministerial Environment Forum, underlines the vital importance of biodiversity, the urgent need to combat climate change and work towards a good outcome in Mexico later in the year and the key opportunities from accelerating a transition to a low-carbon resource-efficient Green Economy.

The statement also highlights the need to improve the overall management of the global environment, accepting that that 'governance architecture' has in many ways become too complex and fragmented.

Click here for the UN press release