'Let's be honest about global warming'

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Scientists have to be more honest about global warming and be less hostile to sceptics, according to the government's chief scientific adviser Professor John Beddington.

However, he said it was an "unchallengeable" fact that man was responsible for climate change by burning fossil fuels and sending carbon into the environment.

Beddington said: "'I don't think it's healthy to dismiss proper scepticism. Science grows and improves in the light of criticism. There is a fundamental uncertainty about climate change prediction that can't be changed."

On the revelation of incorrect claims by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change about the Himalayan glaciers melting, which the panel subsequently had to withdraw, he said: "Certain unqualified statements have been unfortunate. We have a problem in communicating uncertainty. There's definitely an issue there. If there wasn't, there wouldn't be the level of scepticism. All of these predictions have to be caveated by saying 'There's a level of uncertainty about that'."

Beddington told The Times: "It's unchallengeable that CO2 traps heat and warms the Earth and that burning fossil fuels shoves billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. But where you can get challenges is on the speed of change. When you get into large-scale climate modelling there are quite substantial uncertainties. On the rate of change and the local effects, there are uncertainties both in terms of empirical evidence and the climate models themselves."

Dr Benny Peiser of the Global Warming Policy Foundation think tank said: "[Professor Beddington's] public rebuke is a highly significant development which we hope will help to restore some much needed balance and realism to the climate debate."