None of the three official inquiries into the illegal release of climate emails from the University of East Anglia (UEA) showed a "serious concern for the truth", according to a report commissioned by Lord Lawson's sceptical thinktank.
The report, which has been criticised for "bias", contends that none of the inquiries were objective and comprehensive and that public confidence in climate science would not be restored until a thorough investigation is carried out.
Lord Lawson called the three official inquiries, one by the House of Commons science and technology select committee and two commissioned by the university, "highly defective". But he has consistently refused to reveal the identities of the donors behind the secretive Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) which paid for the report.
The inquiry's author, Andrew Montford, criticised the previous inquiries for not investigating the most serious allegations and for failing to ask key questions. For example, Prof Phil Jones, the head of UEA's climatic research unit, had been criticised for writing emails about deleting emails that were apparently the subject of a freedom of information act (FoI) request. He has denied deleting any emails to avoid FoI requests, but the main inquiry into the emails conducted by Sir Muir Russell never asked him or any of the other scientists about this.
Montford, who runs the Bishop Hill climate sceptic blog, also criticised the MPs' inquiry and a third review led by Lord Oxburgh, for failing to address an allegation of fraud relating to a paper that Jones published in 1990.
Dr Evan Harris, who was a member of the science and technology select committee until he lost his seat as an MP in May, said it would not have been appropriate or practical to address the fraud allegation in detail. "It would have given weight to [the allegation] that it may not deserve," he said. "Some of the claims in this area are absurd and, frankly, defamatory. It would have been extremely dubious to have random defamatory allegations dealt with individually."
More generally, Montford criticised the inquiries for a lack of impartiality. The report said there had been a "failure to ensure balance and independence", suggesting CRU members and critics had been treated differently. "While CRU justifications and explanations were willingly accepted without any serious probing, critics were denied adequate opportunity to respond and to counter demonstrably inaccurate claims," it said.
But detractors of the GWPF said the same criticism of bias applied to Montford's report. The study, for which Montford was paid £3,000, did not involve interviews with any of the scientists or anyone involved in the inquiries. Montford said it was reviewed by "five or six people", including the sceptical blogger Steven McIntyre and members of GWPF's advisory panel. According to Montford, none was sympathetic to the scientific case for human-induced climate change.
"I'm partisan in this argument. There's no denying that," he admitted. But he added: "That is not enough on its own [as a reason to dismiss his report's findings]."
Lawson said Montford's views expressed in his book The Hockey Stick Illusion were "no secret", but he urged people to "judge [the review] on its merits".
UAE said all three of the previous inquiries had "found in favour" of its climate scientists and had concluded there was no reason to doubt the scientific consensus that man-made warming is happening.
In a statement it said: "Each of the reviews was independent of the university and one was conducted by a committee of the House of Commons. We would observe that the GWPF Report appears to offer nothing new or previously unavailable and that it has failed to acknowledge the further exhaustive examination undertaken by the US environmental protection agency (published 29 July 2010) which also found no evidence to support the allegations made against CRU."
Comments (105)
This discussion is now closed for comments but you can still sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion next timeComments (105)
This discussion is now closed for comments but you can still sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion next timepjl20,
This is as rigorous as your maths upthread, where you claimed that atmospheric oxygen had fallen from 20 to 16%.
macsporan
Amongst all your bluff and hysteria you seem to forget that the Carbon Cycle is what permits life on Earth to exist and to continue.
The forecast claims you raise are false extrapolations. The point is we are not seeing increases in global temperatures of between 3 and 5 degrees celsius. These exaggerated claims are just not happening, global temperature levels have been on a plateau for over a decade.
The damage done by the volcanic eruption in pre-history to which you refer was because of sulphur dioxide fallout. CO2 is a harmless gas to humans not a pollutant.
What is anthropogenic global warming? It is a result of the human population explosion from 2 billion in 1950 to almost 7 billion today together with the deforestation of Earth's natural environment (which the green movement has dismally failed to do anything about).
I continue my point is that much of the forecasting is wrong and of no value. The refusal to accept criticism is no defence. You have to be able to validate the forecasts for them to have any credibility.
Why oh why is there so much vehemence against Andrew Montford's Report?
I believe it is because the protagonists against it know that it is true.
Why else should the funding of the GWPF be such a contentious issue?