The United Nations has launched an independent review of the functioning of its top climate change body IPCC, which has come under much criticism in the recent months for some errors in its reports.
"... We need to ensure full transparency, accuracy and objectivity and minimise the potential of any error going forward. I have initiated in tandem with the head of the IPCC a comprehensive independent review of the IPCC's procedures and processes," UN chief Ban Ki-moon told reporters here.
Ban yesterday said: "there were a very small number of errors" in the 3,000 pages of the beleaguered Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's last major synthesis of climate data in 2007.
The decision to review was announced by Ban and IPCC chair Rajendra Pachauri in the wake of the report which erroneously claimed that Himalayan glaciers would melt away by 2035.
The error has also been attributed to a typographical error with the words 2035 appearing instead of 2350.
But those errors, which include projections of retreats in Himalayan glaciers, have put public confidence in the Nobel Prize winning panel's work at risk.
"This review will be conducted by the InterAcademy Council... It will be done completely independent of the United Nations," he said.
Robbert Dijkgraaf, a Dutch mathematical physicist who co-chairs the group the InterAcademy Council of 15 nations' national academies of science, said: "We enter this process with no preconceived conclusions."
The investigations carried out by an independent panel into the procedures and process of the UN climate change panel will be "forward looking", Dijkgraaf told journalists here.
"Our task is forward looking. We have been requested to recommend measures and actions to ensure the quality of IPCC reports in the future," he said.
The study is being funded by the UN and the Council will present its findings to the secretary general and the secretariat of the IPCC by August this year.
"We have also been asked to analyze the overall IPCC process including the management, administration and the transparency of the IPCC and the way in which it handles possible errors and communicates them to policymakers and the public," said Dijkgraaf.
Questions have been raised about consultancies held by IPCC chair Ranjendra Pachauri and there have been calls for his resignation.
The present debacle was preceded by another controversy, referred to as Climategate, which surfaced at the same time as the Climate Change Conference kicked off at Copenhagen in December 2009.
Hackers gained access to the data of the climate research centre of the UK-based East Anglia University and eaked confidential data including thousands of e-mails and documents between British and US.
"In recent months we have seen some criticism. We are receptive and sensitive to that and we are doing something about it," Pachauri said, adding "It was in this context that last month the IPCC informed the governments that we would like to carry review of our processes and procedures."
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