Report Recommends Fundamental Reform Of UN Climate Change Panel.

World News - "The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) needs to fundamentally reform its management structure and strengthen its procedures to handle ever larger and increasingly complex climate assessments, the InterAcademy Council (IAC), an Amsterdam-based organization of the world's science academies, said on Monday in a report. ...

The IAC report makes several recommendations to fortify the IPCC's management structure, including establishing an executive committee to act on the Panel's behalf and ensure that an ongoing decision-making capability is maintained.

To enhance its credibility and independence, the executive committee should include individuals from outside the IPCC or even outside the climate science community. The IPCC also should appoint an executive director...to lead the Secretariat, handle day-to-day operations, and speak on behalf of the organization. ..." [Xinhua/Factiva]

Reuters notes that "...The report said the IPCC's mandate calls for it to be 'policy relevant' without advocating specific policies. But some senior IPCC officials have been criticized for remarks that appeared to support specific policy approaches. 'Straying into advocacy can only hurt IPCC's credibility,' the report said. The review said the limit of two six-year terms for the chair of the IPCC...was too long and should be shortened to one term, as should the terms of other senior officials on the UN climate panel. ..." [Reuters/Factiva]

WSJ writes that "...Partisans on both sides of the climate debate saw Monday's report as significant. Advocates of deep emission cuts said the investigation, and the reforms it suggested, should boost public confidence in the IPCC's assertions about the dangers of allowing greenhouse-gas emissions to increase. Critics said the investigation underscored problems with the way the IPCC assesses climate science. They said the agency ignored scientific nuances and dismissed minority viewpoints in its 2007 report. ..." [The Wall Street Journal/Factiva]