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Complaints Office 3rd Floor Admin Building RTÉ Donnybrook Dublin 4 Submitted by email to: [email protected]
1st January, 2016
Complaint re: RTÉ Prime Time programme “How much will climate change cost Ireland” (broadcast 3rd December 2015)
Dear Sir/Madam,
An Taisce, the National Trust for Ireland, wishes to make a formal complaint regarding the panel debate in the above programme on the grounds that it failed to provide fair, objective and impartial news and current affairs content, thereby violating the rules laid down by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland’s Code of Fairness, Objectivity & Impartiality in News and Current Affairs (April 2013). The arguments providing the basis for this assessment are provided in the attached detailed complaint document.
We look forward to a comprehensive response in relation to each of the documented points of complaint, in accordance with the published RTÉ complaints process. We do, of course, reserve the right to refer any or all points to the BAI, in the event that the responses from RTÉ are considered inadequate.
Yours sincerely,
Prof. Barry McMullin Chair, An Taisce Climate Change Committee [email protected]
An Taisce is a membershipbased charity. Join at www.antaisce.org/membership An Taisce – The National Trust for Ireland | The Tailors’ Hall, Back Lane, Dublin 8, D08 X2A3, Ireland |
Company 12469 | Registered Charity No. 20006358 | Charity CHY 4741 | +353 1 454 1786 | [email protected] | www.antaisce.org
Directors: J Harnett, J Leahy, M Mehigan, D Murphy, B Rickwood (UK), C Stanley Smith (UK), A Uí Bhroin, B McMullin, P Maguire, J Sweeney, G Conroy
RTÉ Prime Time “How much will climate change cost Ireland”
Broadcast: 3rd December 2015
[http://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2015/1204/751255primetime03122015/]
Complaint on behalf of An Taisce
1st January 2016
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Introduction An Taisce, the National Trust for Ireland, wishes to make a formal complaint regarding the panel debate in the RTÉ Prime Time programme item, “How much will climate change cost Ireland”, broadcast on 3rd December 2015. The complaint is submitted on the grounds that this item manifestly failed to provide fair, objective and impartial news and current affairs content, thereby violating the rules laid down by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland’s Code of Fairness, Objectivity and Impartiality in News and Current Affairs (April 2013). Our complaint relates specifically to the live panel discussion (i.e., exclusive of the recorded opening segment).
The core of our complaint is that RTÉ Prime Time has once again (see controversy over a previous Prime Time programme last year, Note 1) failed to present climate science fairly, objectively or impartially in a panel discussion, thereby undermining the objective context for effective public understanding and debate on crucial national climate policy decisions.
We note that Section 42 (2) (b) of the Broadcasting Act 2009 requires that “the broadcast treatment of current affairs, including matters which are either of public controversy or the subject of current public debate, is fair to all interests concerned and that the broadcast matter is presented in an objective and impartial manner”. The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland Code of Fairness, Impartiality and Objectivity in News and Current Affairs requires of current affairs programmes that “the approach to covering issues, including those of public controversy or current public debate, should be guided by ensuring equitable, proportionate coverage” (Section 2. Principles Underpinning the Fairness, Objectivity and Impartiality Rules). RTÉ’s own Journalism Guidelines (2012) are also clear that current affairs programmes must “maintain a balance of opinion that reflects the weight of evidence” (S4.3. Editorial Principles. Impartiality). In our view, this panel discussion fell unacceptably short of meeting these important criteria and tests.
Below, we quote the specific BAI rules we believe to have been breached, followed by our particular reason or reasons for complaint.
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1.0 Fairness BAI Rule 7:
Where a person or organisation refuses to contribute to news and current affairs content or chooses to make no comment, the broadcast shall make this fact clear and shall report in a reasonable manner the person/organisation’s explanation for declining to participate, where not to do so could be deemed unfair.
BAI Rule 8:
The refusal of a person or organisation to participate will not preclude the broadcast of news and current affairs content. However, the broadcaster has a responsibility to reflect, as far as practicable, the views of the absent party and to do so fairly.
Complaint A: Nonparticipants and their views went unreported
An Taisce is aware of at least two academic specialists who were invited to participate in the panel, but who declined to do so. In both cases we understand that that they expressly cited concerns that the presence on the panel of Prof. Ray Bates would very likely result in a “false balance” presentation, with the well known consequences of undermining public understanding and promoting a perception of doubt around what are, in fact, extremely strongly established, robust, results from state of the art climate science.
Contrary to BAI rules, Prime Time did not make any reference to the fact that such other specialists had been invited to participate (but had refused); and, as a corollary, the programme failed to communicate the reasons given by these individuals who were expressly contacted by the Prime Time production team for declining to participate.
It should have been obvious to Prime Time’s editor that the fact of these refusals to participate, and the reasons cited for such refusal, needed to be reported fully to ensure fairness, objectivity and impartiality. Not to do so was clearly unfair to the absent parties and failed to highlight the concerns raised over potential misrepresentation of core scientific findings; misrepresentations that did indeed arise in the discussion as it unfolded (as elaborated further below and in the end notes). Accurate reporting of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) science and concerns about false balance were therefore unfairly excluded, removing critical context that the Prime Time editorial team were properly required to provide.
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2.0 Objectivity and Impartiality BAI Rule 17:
News and current affairs content shall be presented with due accuracy, having regard to the circumstances and the facts known at the time of preparing and broadcasting the content.
BAI Rule 19:
Views and facts shall not be misrepresented or presented in such a way as to render them misleading. Presenters should be sensitive to the impact of their language and tone in reporting news and current affairs so as to avoid misunderstanding of the matters covered.
BAI Rule 22:
It is an important part of the role of a presenter of a current affairs programme to ensure that the audience has access to a wide variety of views on the subject of the programme or item; to facilitate the expression of contributors’ opinions – sometimes by forceful questioning; and to reflect the views of those who cannot, or choose not to, participate in content. This being so, a presenter and/or a reporter on a current affairs programme shall not express his or her own views on matters that are either of public controversy or the subject of current public debate such that a partisan position is advocated.
Complaint B: A nonexpert was introduced as an expert and accorded expert status
The programme’s topic was the possible economic effects on Irish agriculture of reducing national greenhouse gas emissions. In the panel discussion Prime Time introduced retired UCD professor Ray Bates as if he is an expert on this policy issue. The presenter inaccurately and misleadingly (Rules 17 & 19) introduced viewers to Prof. Bates saying:
“Ray Bates, this is your area of expertise. What’s your position in terms of what can we afford as a country? Can we afford for our agribusiness and for our farmers to minimise and limit their production for the sake of combating climate change?”
In fact, as must have been well known to Prime Time’s editorial team prior to the programme, ‘this area’ of climate policy – how mitigation action might affect the economics of agriculture – is not at all Prof. Bates’ field of expertise. His academic career has been focused on numerical modelling of the physics of weather (and to a much lesser extent on modelling the physics of climate). It was entirely inaccurate to present Professor Bates as an agricultureclimate policy expert.
Even with the most minimal prior research, the fact of Prof. Bates’ lack of objective expertise on the specific subject at hand would have been abundantly obvious to Prime Time at the time of preparing and broadcasting the content. More obviously still, there are plenty of experts available in Ireland who are far more qualified to talk on a panel about the subject (such as Prof. Alan Matthews and Dr. Joe Curtin who were both featured in the recorded segment). Given these facts, why was Prof. Bates introduced as a supposedly objective scientific expert on climate policy in relation to agriculture and agrifood? It
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certainly appears to be a far from objectively justifiable editorial choice; and can reasonably be assumed to have confused and misled viewers as a result.
Complaint C: Inadequate questioning of personal opinion, compounded by the presenter’s apparent ignorance of basic climate science expert findings
Having misleadingly agreed with the inaccurate premise of the presenter’s introduction, Prof. Bates was then allowed by the presenter to divert from the programme topic into a discussion of ‘climate sensitivity’, which was not the topic under discussion and which, being climate science, neither the presenter nor other panelists were qualified to question him on, as the following exchange illustrates:
Presenter: Just to simplify this Ray because we’re not, obviously, all scientists here. What you’re saying is if I am correct is that you don’t think the progression of climate change is as big an emergency as the leaders in Paris are saying.
Prof. Bates: Yes, it’s not a planetary emergency, it’s a very serious threat and it justifies action to cut back emissions but it is not a planetary emergency that would require countries like Ireland to seriously damage their national interest.
Presenter: You know you are going against the grain of the vast majority of scientists don’t you?
Prof. Bates: That’s okay.
It is obvious here, and later (16:50, “Ray, you are in a tiny minority”), that Prime Time was well aware that Prof. Bates’ views are not consistent with the mainstream of climate science. Knowing this should have required Prime Time to ensure accurate reporting of the mainstream, consensus, understanding of all presented climate science. The programme failed to ensure these essential balances for objectivity and impartiality.
Instead, having allowed digression into a discussion of climate science and knowing full well that the views of nonscientist panellists would not be perceived by the viewer as being of similar weight to a ‘scientist’, Prime Time failed to question the unsatisfactory and incomplete reporting of core climate science findings nor the immediately following advocacy of minimalist climate mitigation action in Ireland. Prof. Bates was allowed, without challenge, to state that he supported, and was reporting, the consensus scientific findings of the distinguished UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) when, as a matter of objective fact, he has publicly disagreed with them (see Note 2).
A scientist is, of course, fully entitled to advocate for a personal view on policy, but it is important that they should make it clear when they are doing so (Note 3). Misleadingly though, on Prime Time, Prof. Bates said that he follows the IPCC reports and implied that his statements on climate science are those of the IPCC consensus science. This is not the case (Note 4). Given Prof. Bates’ previous media articles and statements, RTÉ entirely failed to prepare to address this likely and actual misrepresentation, and so allowed a deeply misleading impression of IPCC science to be given to viewers without qualification or serious, critically informed, questioning.
Professor Bates is absolutely entitled to his personal views, even if they are outside much of the strong consensus among climate scientists as reflected in the IPCC’s AR5 assessment. However, when knowingly choosing to give air time to advocates of such outlier views RTÉ also has a duty to ensure against a bias toward misinformation and
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misrepresentation, especially if the consensus science is inadequately reported as a result, as was the case in this programme.
For example, in the above exchange Prof. Bates presented a false and misleading choice (that he has repeatedly expressed before in his personal advocacy): that ‘climate change is not a planetary emergency, only a longterm threat’. The presenter failed to offer any direct challenge to this assertion. In fact, on the basis of the best currently available scientific understanding, it far more likely that human caused climate change is both a current and immediate planetary emergency and a catastrophic longterm threat. Indeed, this is the clear import of the following IPCC headline statement in its most recent report:
“Continued emissions of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and changes in all components of the climate system. Limiting climate change will require substantial and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions”. IPCC AR5 WG1 SPM p.19
When scientists say something as strong as ‘will require’ (without qualification) then it is surely a point that policymakers and the media need to take into account in all discussions of climate policy action. This information is easily available directly from the IPCC website in a whole range of formats, from the most simple and accessible for the general public to highly detailed, expert assessment of the peerreviewed science. Even the simplest level of understanding of IPCC findings would have been useful and relevant to the editor and presenter of this programme; and would appear to be a minimal requirement to ensure meeting the applicable standards for fairness, objectivity and impartiality in such a discussion.
Such an improved acquaintance with the headline statements of IPCCassessed climate science would enable the “forceful questioning” called for by BAI Rule 22 and is evidently needed to balance contributor opinions with accuracy and objectivity. The IPCC has engaged in a highly objective and critical assessment process to vet the available literature of peerreviewed, scientific evidence (specifically including critical examination of papers by Professor Bates, see Note 4a), so it is a great shame that the Prime Time team appeared to be unprepared to engage in a similarly critical way when faced with ‘contrarian’ scientific claims. If the programme team is unwilling or unable to provide such critical scrutiny, then it is surely inappropriate to offer a national platform for unrestrained promotion of such fringe views; especially when these relate, as they did here, to policy matters with potential for catastrophic harm, both nationally and globally.
Complaint D: Misleading programme bias emphasising shortterm and local costs of mitigation, yet downplaying potential benefits of action and longterm costs of inaction
This Prime Time programme was entitled “How much will climate change cost Ireland”, and was narrowly framed as a debate between defending the shortterm interest of expanding Irish agrifood business as against supposedly costly emissions reduction action. At the very least this framing prejudiced viewers’ thinking toward considering mitigation action as costly to Ireland, and away from considering the likely extremely costly climate impacts from continued high emissions that are likely to hit all parts of the Irish economy in the future, including major probable impacts and cost on Irish agriculture itself (see Note 5). This framing also diverted viewers’ attention away from the very large potential relative benefits to Ireland of early action in adopting a low carbon pathway toward
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increased resilience and longterm sustainability, a pathway that Ireland has repeatedly asserted at the UN and EU that it intends to follow.
Discussing climate change understandably presents a great difficulty for news and current affairs programming because its causes and effects are highly dispersed geographically and through time: emissions happen locally but affect the entire world, adding up incrementally and slowly over time to an escalating risk affecting peoples and ecosystems very differently according to their vulnerability and exposure to impacts. There is also the hugely overlooked issue of intergenerational equity whereby the welfare of future generations is seriously affected by decisions made now and in the coming decades.
Almost inevitably, as in their very name, news and current affairs programmes are biased toward discussing immediate and shortterm events, such as the immediate, local, costs of acting to limit climate change, and so are biased against assessing the longerterm, and larger scale, costs of not acting. This is a systemic problem for objective reporting of climate action because the expert assessment from science, risk, and economic experts (respectively Working Groups 1, 2 and 3 of the IPCC) is extremely clear in forcefully saying and finding that acting early and continually to cut emissions quickly will be safer and far cheaper than delaying action. A serious question for RTÉ is how can this conflict between shortterm and longterm interests be fairly reflected in reporting and discussing climate change in programmes and panel discussions.
Somehow RTÉ needs to come to terms with the fact that the default journalistic bias toward emphasising shortterm and local costs is in direct conflict with fairly and objectively engaging with the fact of slowonset, ever increasing, longterm global damages from climate change, caused by continued emissions of greenhouse gases based on decisions being made now. These may well deeply affect the medium and longterm outlook for Ireland’s economy and society. Shortterm and longterm economic and societal interests are quite likely to be in direct conflict, so that discussions of tradeoffs between the two need to be fairly balanced. Decisions that invest in future resilience and longterm sustainability may require major costs in the shortterm that only pay off in the longterm, an aspect that media also need to report fairly.
RTÉ therefore needs to work much harder to ensure impartial and objective understanding of climate action as it affects decisions that government and society will have to make. This Prime Time programme in particular failed to meet these standards.
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3.0 Appropriate Policies and Procedures BAI Rule 25:
Each broadcaster shall have and implement appropriate policies and procedures to address any conflicts of interests that may exist or arise in respect of anyone with an editorial involvement in any news or current affairs content, whether such person works onair or offair.
Complaint F: Lack of any specific RTÉ policy or procedure to give ‘due weight’ to IPCC consensus science (that could thereby avoid the well known phenomenon of misleading “false balance debate”)
Based on the shortcomings exemplified by the Prime Time programme, we urge RTÉ to look seriously at the issue of improving guidelines on accurate reporting of climate change science and policy. It certainly appears that the production team responsible for this Prime Time programme lacked adequate professional understanding of the overall climate change challenge and its likely increasing impact on all aspects of society; understanding that would be necessary to properly present the chosen topic. Recent internal research on RTÉ’s climate change reporting has already found it to be deficient in quantity and quality (Note 6). RTÉ could usefully reflect on a recent BBC internal report on its respective climate change coverage (Note 7). The BBC responded to this report by giving “due weight” to consensus science and much reduced weight to minority ‘contrarian’ opinions. The BBC has since recognised and acknowledged that it had breached this code in a recent radio programme (Note 8). This demonstrates that such voluntary, broadcaster defined, codes can work well to ensure that factual context is not lost due to bias or omission, and that lapses are identified and corrected. Adoption of a similar code by RTÉ would clearly identify to future programme makers the kind of false balance and misrepresentation lapses in editorial production that are unacceptable in presenting climate change science.
It is important to recognise that the UN set up the IPCC with the express purpose to question scientific findings deeply and skeptically, to produce the fairest, most objective, open and impartial assessment of climate science, all in order to give the strongest posible scientific evidence base for policy. This assessed consensus of thousands of scientists is agreed by leading scientists and experts through the IPCC processes and subsequently endorsed by all of the governments of the world. Yet it appears, on the basis of this Prime Time programme, that the production team judged that local contrarian scientific views should be presented as having equal or greater weight; or (worse?) that an appropriate way to critique serious scientific views is “trial by television”. The absurdity of this kind of media false balance on climate change is so apparent that it has become a subject for popular comic ridicule (Note 9). Media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times and Reddit already have stated policies regarding scientific climate change coverage so as to exclude and correct factual errors and misrepresentation in opinion pieces or letters. Again, we suggest that RTÉ could and should reflect on these judgements and policies established by its own international journalistic peers.
It is also striking that the Prime Time editorial team did not demonstrate or communicate any awareness of widely known research on the media methods typically used by those creating scientific doubt in order to covertly delay or disrupt policy action. Promoting public
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doubt about science to cover for advocating inaction is a standard delaying strategy that developed in the tobacco industry’s denial of the link between tobacco and cancer, and is now also common in delaying climate regulation and policy (see Note 10). Vested interests (and a very few scientists) engaged in delaying climate mitigation action have consistently employed the same tactics as the tobacco industry did: stressing only minor or slowonset harmful impacts, exaggerating uncertainties and intentionally confusing science with politics. Given the particular panel selection made by Prime Time, and having been explicitly advised of concerns over false balance and promotion of doubt, at the very least it would seem that the programme could and should have communicated these potential dangers explicitly to viewers.
Even if the entire programme had been focused on a specialist discussion of ‘climate sensitivity’, with a panel comprised entirely of climate scientists, it is highly doubtful that the Prime Time panel format could clarify or advance scientific argument in any effective way, either academically or in the minds of viewers. Rather, critically testing and resolving scientific argument, for practical purposes, is the proper and effective function of the peer reviewed academic literature. In the case of climate science this expert scientific consensus provides a coherent, accurate and (within stated uncertainties) predictive view of the world, that has been arrived at over many decades of peer scientific critique, that is now endorsed by all of the world’s leading scientific bodies, and remains subject to continuous, repeated, exhaustive and transparent review. Accordingly, the proper option for evidence based policy is to adopt the best scientific consensus available at any given time; and to revise it only if and when that scientific consensus changes materially. This is a critical perspective that any fair, objective and balanced programming dealing with climate science must be sure to convey. As an example the simple yet very informative IPCC summary video (Note 11) gives the kind of clarity in climate information that was entirely missing in this Prime Time programme.
To assure that the due weight of evidence is properly reflected in framing discussions, and that immediate and local concerns are balanced with the much wider and longer term concerns that climate policy decisions made now will deeply affect, it seems to us that RTÉ urgently needs to draft clear guidelines to assist programme editors and presenters. This programme would certainly have benefited from such guidelines to avoid the egregious mistakes in fairness and accurate reporting that occurred.
Conclusion An Taisce looks forward to a detailed and comprehensive response in relation to each of the above points of complaint. We do, of course, reserve the right to refer any or all points to the BAI, in the event that the responses from RTÉ are considered inadequate.
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Notes 1. RTÉ Prime Time programme March 18th, 2014. See discussions:
http://www.thinkorswim.ie/aprimelessoninhownottocoverclimatechange/ http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/columnists/victoriawhite/primetimeandrteareindenialofthetruthaboutclimatechange264064.html
2. For example, see Irish Times articles by Prof. Bates on 21 May 2014 and 1 July 2015
disagreeing with IPCC science on climate sensitivity and risk.
3. Schmidt G (2013) What should a climate scientist advocate for? Stephen Schneider
Lecture (GC43E 01) AGU 2013 Fall Meeting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJC1phPS6IA
4. (a) On climate sensitivity: Professor Bates implied on Prime Time that he agrees and
accepts the IPCC climate sensitivity range (if only with the low end of the 1.5ºC/doubling to 4.5ºC/doubling range). However, four review comments made by Prof. Bates to the IPCC on the AR5 draft report (016 to 020 inclusive) show he does not agree with the IPCC. Also, all of Prof. Bates’ points were rejected in the IPCC expert responses as being based on modelling that was overly simplistic and/or did not match observations of reality. See: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessmentreport/ar5/wg1/drafts/Ch00_WG1AR5FOD_RevCommResponses_Final.pdf Furthermore, see June 2015 lecture by Prof. Bates, Slide 25, asserting climate sensitivity is less than 1Cº per doubling of CO2eq concentration, which is very much below the IPCC range: http://www.inm.ras.ru/library/MarchukConference/09.06.2015/R.%20Bates.pptx In fact at present there is no good risk management case for optimistically preferring the lower, “safer” end of the IPCC range over the equally probable, upper, and far more dangerous end of the climate sensitivity range. It is very possible, on the current emissions trajectory, that GHG concentrations will more than double over preindustrial levels within a small number of decades, so that very dangerous climate change could occur even if GHG sensitivity turns out to be relatively low (unlikely as that currently appears). These material, wellevidenced, facts were not presented by Prof. Bates, nor communicated by the presenter or programme team during or after the programme. (b) On climate modelling robustness: At 24:30, Prof. Bates says, “I follow the IPCC report and when I speak as a scientist I am not giving personal opinions. I am not giving personal opinions. The climate models are at the moment giving a warming, a rate of warming that is about three times what has been observed in practice”. While it is unclear what source he was relying on for this extraordinary claim, it is consistent with a widely circulated chart prepared by Prof. John Christy. Prof. Christy is (another)
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scientist noted for promoting weaklyevidenced ‘contrarian’ views; see: https://www.skepticalscience.com/skeptic_John_Christy.htm Prof. Christy’s chart shows midtroposphere temperatures compared with models and (cherrypicked?) data, rather than the normal, useful comparison with surface temperature. See additional information here: https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/2015/12/13/consilienceoftheevidence/ A chart far more appropriate to assessing the standard average surface temperature observations as against climate modelling shows that the models from the year 2000 have in fact done very well in projecting the actual 2015 temperature: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climateconsensus97percent/2015/aug/10/2015globaltemperaturesrightinlinewithclimatemodelpredictions. (c) On the IPCC attribution quote: Prof. Bates very selectively quoted the IPCC, when saying: “I accept the IPCC findings. The central finding of the IPCC 2013 report [AR5 WG1?] was “It is extremely likely that more than half of the observed warming since 1950 is due to anthropogenic causes””. This makes it sound as if the warming is perhaps only half due to natural causes and half due to human causes, a misrepresentation conveniently in line with Prof. Bates’ own personal preference to emphasise natural climate variability. However, this partquote misleadingly underplays the IPCC’s full statement by leaving out the essential, clarifying second line of the quoted paragraph that reads: “The best estimate of the humaninduced contribution to warming is similar to the observed warming over this period.” (IPCC AR5 SPM p.17). In other words the full paragraph, first identifies that half of the observed warming since 1950 is the minimum plausible proportion of warming that could be human caused; but, secondly, that the most likely explanation of the data is in fact that all of the observed warming is humancaused (as Professor John Sweeney has pointed out in an Irish Times article of 4 Aug 2015, rebutting Prof. Bates). This is the level of detail that needs to be understood by a presenter if unfair misrepresentations of science are to be avoided onair when panel positions are accorded to those who may not fairly report the IPCC consensus. (d) On the rate of global warming over the past 15 or so years: The presenter (26:13) addressed the panel saying, “Ray is not saying it’s not happening, he’s just saying it’s happening slower” clearly referring to Prof. Bates’ repeated assertion that global warming has slowed or stopped in the past 18 years, a socalled hiatus or pause. Once again Prof. Bates’ views go directly against the IPCC who in this case specifically warn against using such shortterm trends in describing climate change:
“In addition to robust multidecadal warming, global mean surface temperature exhibits substantial decadal and interannual variability (see Figure SPM.1). Due to natural variability, trends based on short records are very sensitive to the beginning and end dates and do not in general reflect longterm climate trends. As one example, the rate of warming over the past 15 years (1998–2012; 0.05 [–0.05 to 0.15] °C per decade), which begins with a strong El Niño, is smaller than the rate calculated since 1951 (1951–2012; 0.12 [0.08 to 0.14] °C per decade).”
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In fact, contrary to Prof. Bates, when historic records of global mean temperature are classified separately into El Niño, Normal and La Niña groupings each set shows the same rate of global warming; see: http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=67 Filtering for the large effect of the Pacific on global mean surface temperature makes it very clear that there has been no hiatus or ‘pause’ in global warming, which continues at a steadily increasing rate due to continued high global emissions of greenhouse gases.
5. Flood S (2013) Projected Economic Impacts of Climate Change on Irish Agriculture. ICARUS NUIM. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259290533_Projected_Economic_Impacts_of_Climate_Change_on_Irish_Agriculture
6. Cullinane M, Watson C (2014) Irish Public Service Broadcasting and the Climate Change Challenge. Research for the RTÉ ́Audience Council (unpublished, to date?).
7. BBC Trust (2011) Review of impartiality and accuracy of the BBC’s coverage of science. July 2011. http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/our_work/science_impartiality/science_impartiality.pdf
8. The Telegraph (2015). Radio 4 show that criticised Met Office stance on climate change broke broadcasting rules. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/12033749/Radio4showthatcriticisedMetOfficestanceonclimatechangebrokebroadcastingrules.html
9. HBO (2014) John Oliver hosts a mathematically representative climate change debate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjuGCJJUGsg
10. Oreskes N, Conway EM (2010) Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming. Bloomsbury Press.
11.IPCC (2015) Video summary of the AR5 Synthesis Report. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrF042fGfQM
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