Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
Well, I woke up to some bad news this morning. It turns out that the GAO, the US General Accounting Office, says US has been secretly hiding their funding of the IPCC for the last decade.
They were already told not to do that by the GAO. In the 2005 GAO report with the swingeing title of “Federal Reports on Climate Change Funding Should Be Clearer and More Complete”, the GAO said … well, basically what the title said. But noooo, those sneaky bureaucrats didn’t do that at all.
The latest 2011 GAO Report says the US government has not changed their ways. They have been clandestinely providing about half the operating funds for the IPCC for the last decade. In other words, the IPCC funding arrangements are of a piece with their “scientific” claims and their other actions—secretive, shabby, with a hidden agenda, and full of disinformation.
The report says that the State Department provided $19 million dollars to the IPCC. Thanks, guys. Foolish me, I hadn’t realized that paying for bureaucrats to go party in Cancun and Durban was part of the function of the United States Department of State.
I also found out that the IPCC got $12.1 million dollars from the US Global Change Research Program. That one really angrifies my blood. The IPCC flat out states that they do not do a single scrap of scientific research … so why is the US Global Change Research Program giving them a dime, much less twelve million, that was supposed to go for research? I could use that for my research, for example …
The 2011 GAO report had some strong advice for the climate profiteers behind this secretive funding. They said:
“Congress and the public cannot consistently track federal climate change funding or spending over time,”
Oh, no, wait, that’s what the GAO said back in 2005. Unfortunately, they have no enforcement powers. What they said this time around was that the funding information:
“… was not available in budget documents or on the websites of the relevant federal agencies, and the agencies are generally not required to report this information to Congress.”
In other words … no change from 2005.
Congressfolk, you are not paying attention. These guys are taking money for research and using it to party in Durban and other nice places around the planet. And the US has been secretly funding them for a decade.
Can anyone name for me one valuable thing that the IPCC has done? Can anyone point to an accomplishment by the IPCC that justifies their existence? Because I can’t. They throw a good party, to be sure, their last global extravaganza had 10,000 guests … but as for advancing the climate discussion, they have done nothing but push it backwards.
And the next Assessment Report, AR5, will be even more meaningless than the last. This time, people are watching them refuse to require conflict-of-interest statements from the authors. This time, people are watching them appoint known serial scientific malfeasants to positions of power in the writing of the report. This time, people are keeping track of the petty machinations of the railroad engineer that’s running the show despite calls from his own supporters to step down.
As a result, the AR5 report from the IPCC has been pre-debunked. It will be published to no doubt great fanfare and sink like a stone, dragged down by the politicized, poorly summarized bad science and rewarmed NGO puff pieces that the IPCC is promoting as though they were real science.
Folks … can we call a long overdue halt to this IPCC parade of useless and even antiscientific actions? Can we stop the endless partying at taxpayer expense? Can we “trow da bums out” and get back to climate science?
Please?
I say DEFUND THE IPCC NOW!
w.
PS—The GAO report is available here. And all is not lost, at least one Congressman is working to defund the IPCC:
Wrapped into the many amendments recently passed by the House of Representatives — a total of $60 billion in spending cuts that the president called a “nonstarter” — was one by Republican Missouri Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer that would prohibit $13 million in taxpayer dollars from going to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the group whose occasional missteps have been the source of countless confrontations among climate scientists over the past year.
…
A congressional aide told FoxNews.com that he plans to pursue the bill — regardless of whether it is passed in the larger Republican budget.
“The congressman plans to continue his effort to stop taxpayer support of the IPCC and remains cautiously optimistic that the Senate will take the amendment,” said Keith Beardslee, a spokesman for the congressman. “Failing that, Blaine has reintroduced separate legislation he first introduced in the 111th Congress to halt funding to the IPCC.”
GO MISSOURI! GO LUETKEMEYER!!
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What the heck? This is a bargain compared to Solyndra.
I think the Americans have done enough to help people out, particularly in their own time of need financially. I wish alarmists wouldn’t condemn them so quickly, they are smart people, a lot smarter than they are given credit for. It’s Europe that are the problem, and I include Great Britain. This air tax is ridiculous, now China is saying it will introduce carbon tax in 2015. The Australian government is saying now they were right to bring in the carbon tax. Would this be that China is now the chief manufacturer of wind turbines and solar panels etc? But the UNIPCC and the UNCCF is a con, and a step to prove a one world government will work. LIke hell it will.
@Willis
UNFCCC is not the parent body of the IPCC (UNEP and WMO are), so the only person confused here is you. The COP meetings have nothing to do with the IPCC, nor it’s funding.
Why insist on things that are obviously, checkably, wrong? It just undermines your credibility.
JPY says:
January 8, 2012 at 8:57 am
Looking it up, I find that the IPCC itself says (emphasis mine):
So contrary to your claim, the UNFCCC is indeed one of the funders of the IPCC. It also (as you note) funds the annual Conference of the Partygoers.
Why insist on being a jerk, JPY? Even if you were right, why the snark and nastiness? I thought the IPCC was funded by the UNFCCC. Turns out it is funded by the UNFCCC. Who knew? Not you, obviously.
Next time, I’d advise you do your homework first before trying to bust me, particularly on such an inconsequential point. I say defund the IPCC no matter who is funding it.
Happy now?
w.
David Spencer says:
January 7, 2012 at 1:39 pm
“This”, the IPCC, has been a leading player in convincing the world to spend billions, not millions as with Solyndra but billions, on policies which have done absolutely nothing for the planet. Zero. Zip.
If you think that countries following the Pied Piper of the IPCC and pouring billions and billions of dollars down a climate rathole is “a bargain compared to Solyndra”, you’re not following the story.
w.
Sou says:
January 6, 2012 at 4:39 pm
My bad, Sou, it was UNESCO we’re barred from funding. I find it hard to hack my way through the bafflegab and keep the acronyms strainght. So sue me.
I notice you said nothing about the actual main issues in my posting, perhaps wisely so. However, are there any other trivial points you’d like to harp on? Now’s the time.
w.
Hi Willis, Thanks for inviting me to respond. I tried to do so several hours ago and was more polite than you, but it looks as if WUWT doesn’t accept my comments any more. From reading of other posters this has happened to, I’d say that this website limits and/or prevents comments from people who accept mainstream climate science and understand what forces are driving the climate these days. (Anthony made veiled threats to me in the past because I accept the science, and put me on some sort of mod list months ago.)
Maybe one of the mods will pass my previous unpublished comment on to you privately.
@Willis
You might want to work on the reading comprehension a little.
1) UNEP and WMO are the parent bodies of IPCC – no one else:
http://www.ipcc.ch/organization/organization_structure.shtml
2) The line you quote states that the UNFCCC provides some funding to IPCC. Fair enough.
3) But your argument is now completely backwards. In the top post you state
implying that this State Dept. money went to funding the COP meetings of the UNFCCC. This is just wrong because the $1.9 million per year (some extra context there) from State goes to the IPCC Trust Fund – not UNFCCC. (By the way, I think you’ll find that it is precisely the job of State to pay for bureaucrats to go meetings and talk to other bureaucrats).
Your revised argument above is that the IPCC should be defunded because it also gets some money from UNFCCC, but how that is related to the US funding of IPCC directly is a complete mystery.
All we are able to conclude is that you want the IPCC to be defunded (for whatever reason) regardless of where it’s money comes from, in which case, what was the point of this post other than to confuse and mislead?
Sou says:
January 9, 2012 at 3:28 am
Nonsense. People do get snipped here, but AFAIK never for scientific reasons, only because they are being jerks. If you weren’t being a jerk, then your post might have gotten caught in the spam filter. Or perhaps it never got posted due to some internet glitch, how do I know?
But your paranoia doesn’t move things forwards. I lose posts on blogs once in a while, which is why I copy them before I post them. Then if they go missing, I repost them. I suggest you might do the same.
w.
PS—If I’m going to be impolite to you, you will know it. My previous post was me being more polite than you deserved, given the tone of your comment. Hey, I made a mistake, I mistook UNICEF for UNESCO … but from your reporting, you’d have thought I robbed a bank or had been charged with moral turpentine or mopery on the skyways or something.
JPY says:
January 9, 2012 at 5:22 am
I would like the IPCC defunded. And you are right, I want it defunded no matter where the money comes from.
I have made my reasons for wanting it defunded abundantly clear. And since you asked, the point of the post is that the US has been secretly funding the IPCC, which should be stopped.
If you are confused, I fear you’ll find the reason in a mirror, and not here in this thread. Everyone else seemed to be able to discern the point of the post, so get with the program or you’ll be left behind.
w.
Oh, what a pile of hogwash. The previous administration (George Bush Jr) doubted the cause of global warming as anthropogenic, described the EPA findings that humanity caused most of recent the warming as ‘bureaucracy’, was criticised by climate scientists (and other scientists) for ‘hiding the truth’ and muzzling scientists, and withdrew US support from the Kyoto protocol as one of its early acts of governance. Their funding of the IPCC was totally at odds with their “scientific claims.”
The Bush admin was heavily plugged in to big oil (didn’t Condaleeza Rice have an oil tanker named after her?). You could spin a yarn about them conspiring against the IPCC/Kyoto, but conspiring with? Puhleeeeease.
Anyone who purports government green conspiracy in the US or Australia does this amazing mental trick where they delete the decade of the previous government from the record. For it’s sheer size, an amusing oversight.
barry says:
January 9, 2012 at 1:59 pm
First, barry, perhaps you are not from the US, but different parts of the US do different things. Sometimes they do them without the approval of the powers that be.
Second, the State Department is comprised of career bureaucrats, and has a reputation for being one of the more liberal branches of the government.
This often leads to the right hand either not knowing or not able to do anything about what the left hand does. For example, according to the US General Accounting Office (GAO), the secret funding of the IPCC has been going on for a decade. Did Bush know about that? I haven’t a clue. You are right about Bush’s ways … but what does that have to do with evidence, not a guess but evidence, of clandestine funding going back a decade, through more than half the Bush presidency?
Here’s the deal, barry. if you want to claim that the GAO is lying or mistaken about the IPCC funding, you’ll need to bring more than your good looks and your electronic pen to the discussion. You have to bring some evidence that the GAO is wrong about the funding going on under Bush. You know evidence, right? They also call it “facts”, “data”, “reports”, things like that.
Because so far, my friend, what we have is a well researched, cited, detailed GAO document on one side that says the clandestine funding went on under both Obama and Bush, and on the other side … well, what we have is you. And your mouth.
Your move …
w.
catch up, guys- i defunded the ipcc years ago when i stopped paying for it. learn to shrug.
gnomish says:
January 10, 2012 at 10:08 am
If you pay taxes in almost any country on the planet, your dollars are funding the IPCC. Catch up, gnomish …
w.
JPY says:
January 9, 2012 at 5:22 am
Gosh, my bad. Because the UNFCCC funds IPCC I assumed it was one of the “parent bodies”, but it isn’t. So sue me.
You’re right, the US money went to parasites in Geneva rather than to parasites in Durban. I feel much better now …
But “$1.9 million” as you claim? As a friend of mine remarked, you “might want to work on the reading comprehension a little”, because the report says:
Get with the picture here, JPY. The GAO report doesn’t even contain the number “1.9”, that’s your poor reading comprehensions.
I want the UN IPCC defunded, but not “because it also gets some money from UNFCCC”, that’s your fantasy based on … well, I haven’t a clue what you base your fantasies on. I was quite clear why I wanted it defunded. I said:
That’s why I want it defunded, not because it get money from the UNFCCC. You really, really should work on your reading comprehension, because that part was quite clear.
Nope. That may be all you are able to conclude, but if so, you must have failed reading class. We are able to conclude that I want the IPCC defunded for the reasons I clearly stated, mainly that it has not done anything of value for as long as it has existed and is thus nothing more than a useless pile of parasites.
w.
HI Willis,
I like this piece (no comment on the Moon one :)). It makes my blood boil, but the amounts are not significant. I went to the GAO website. It’s not very clean for finding stuff online. From there I got directed to the Recovery Act of 2011, and from there to the 2012 Budget, published by the U.S Government Printing Office:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collection.action?collectionCode=BUDGET&browsePath=Fiscal+Year+2012&isCollapsed=false&leafLevelBrowse=false&isDocumentResults=true&ycord=0
It’s online as a PDF and you can do some searches on words like “Climate” and “Global Warming”. On the Global Warming search I found this “gem”:
“That is why the Budget makes a significant
investment in clean energy technology. Whoever
leads in the global, clean energy economy will
also take the lead in creating high-paying, highly skilled
jobs for its people. More than that, moving
toward a clean energy economy will reduce
our reliance on foreign oil and on other energy
sources that contribute to global warming. We
are at the cusp of a future in which hundreds of
thousands of cars and trucks that do not rely on
a gasoline-powered engine will be on our roads,
and where millions of homes will be powered by
electricity from clean sources. To bring about this
future and to nurture the incalculable number of
good ideas that one day will be ready to go from
lab to market, we need to make the United States
the world leader in innovation. The Budget
proposes to:
Increase Investment in Research and
Development (R&D) and the Creation of
Transformational Technologies. For many
years, the United States has been a world leader
in R&D spending, as well as in the quality and
impact of that spending. The challenge is for the
United States to make private and public investments
in science, research and development that
will keep the United States as the world’s leader
in innovation for decades to come. The 2012 Budget
does that by providing $148 billion for R&D
overall, while targeting resources to those areas
most likely to directly contribute to the creation
of transformational technologies that can create
the businesses and jobs of the future. Among the
steps taken are:…..”
Yep, you read that right, AN INCREASE TO $148 BILLION for research of new technologies to compete in the global economy fighting the effects of Global Warming.
And that is just one instance…..
Best,
J.
thought you might enjoy this pic, willis.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/535/switchkey.jpg/
that’s my solid gold switch key. once upon a time i worked on the railroad. i was the railroad.
it’s worse than u thot…lol i’m batshit crazy.
Willis,
Oh, so now it’s not the ‘US Government’, but ‘career bureaucrats in the US State Department’. Thanks for the clarification. So, do these people operate in isolation from the Secretary of State?
Calling it ‘clandestine’ is your spin. The GAO reports inadequate, not mendacious accounting practises.
The report refers to poorly documented funding going back to 2001 – that’s the entire Bush administration and the State Department under Powell and then Rice, and that’s ten years of sneaky bureaucrats passing money under their noses against the government’s “scientific claims”. I can hardly wait for the full exposay.
And what is the bill for State Department funding? $1.9 million a year. Staggering.
And how much were they trying to hide? I quote from the first paragraph on your link.
So the State Department overstated the funding to the IPCC.
The GAO report is a sober assessment of two clerical errors, one which runs counter to your argument, and the other is a mislabelling the year of a funding packet (this criticism is disputed by the NSF). The GAO report calls for a change of protocol and consolidation of funding reporting for the IPCC, because the State and NSF are generally not required to report this information to Congress (first paragraph, your link). The agencies have not been involved in something “secretive, shabby, with a hidden agenda, and full of disinformation.” You article is a political spin cycle, and would be a good fit in National Enquirer, or similar lurid tabloid.
barry is naive, believing that the government isn’t spin-doctoring their releases. And even one dollar paid for UN/IPCC propaganda is a dollar too much.
barry says:
January 10, 2012 at 5:07 pm
If your first beef is that I referred to the actions of a part of the US Government as actions of “the US Government”, you’ve lost the argument and are picking nits. That is unbelievably trivial.
barry, the GAO pointed out in their report that they told the State Department about what you call an “inadequate accounting practice” back in 2005. At that point in 2005 it could possibly have been a mistake.
But when they didn’t fix it, and they kept up the practice of not reporting the expenditure? Sorry, at that point anyone who thinks it is still an “inadequate accounting practice” is either not following the story, or doesn’t understand the US Government. Your choice
So would you be willing to pay the trivial bill out of your own pocket? Nineteen million dollars is real money, barry, no matter how much you may sneer and look down your nose at it. And from my perspective, even a penny is far too much to spend on those charming folks.
You really do have reading difficulties, don’t you? I thought I was kidding before when I said that.
The State Department didn’t “overstate” a dang thing. They reported exactly how much money they gave to the IPCC. The fact that the IPCC didn’t spend it all on IPCC business, but spent it on some other project, makes things worse, not better … but it was still funding that the US gave to the IPCC no matter what they did with it from there.
Right, it’s gone on for ten years (despite being pointed out six years ago) and it has poured $19 million dollars down a rathole because of “mislabelling” and “clerical errors” … you are welcome to believe that, barry.
I’m sure, however, you’ll forgive those of us who actually spend time in the real world if we don’t sign on to your fantasies about noble bureaucrats making simple reporting errors … save that story to tell your kids.
w.
PS-It might help your understanding to recall that in 2005, when GAO blew the whistle the first time, there was a Republican in power … so disguising/concealing/hiding (you pick the word of choice) the funding of the IPCC would have been greatly in the interest of those who arranged that the US taxpayer would float $19 million dollars of the IPCC’s expanses …
barry, your claim that 19 million dollars is too trivial to be concerned about reminded me of Everett Dirksen’s quote. Dirksen was a long-time opponent of government spending. He famously said:
The domestic equivalent is “Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.
And yet you advise we ignore both the pennies and the millions as being below your concern line.
I hold with Dirksen in this question. Especially in our current parlous economic condition (broke and owing lots of money), waste in any form and of any amount needs to be watched carefully, even if it is “only” nineteen million dollars.
w.
Willis,
it is no secret that the US, along with other governments, helps fund the IPCC process. And it’s well-known that the US foots the lion’s share of the bill, a few million a year. The way you tell it, this is some great revelation. It isn’t.
There is nothing wrong with you demanding your Congress-critter make sure funding details are clearer. Changing the rules is a Congressional responsibility and that is precisely where you should direct your bile. But you direct it at the wrong people.
Having read further, the 2005 report did not examine State Department financial reporting practises at all, so your suggestion that S/D bureaucrats ignored advice in 2005 is at odds with the facts. Is the State Department supposed to take accounting advice directed specifically at the OMB? The implication is not only that the right hand should know what the left foot is doing, but should be doing the same thing. And the advice to the then CCSP was different to what the NSF got in the latest report. Furthermore, the GAO makes no mention of the 2005 report in its latest report.
I suppose you could argue you didn’t specifically tie the State Department into the allegation that bureaucrats ignored the 2005 report. But that is the implication, and that’s what rhetoric is supposed to do – stir the emotions, not nourish the mind. And it’s not very convincing to smear government officials as “secretive, shabby, with a hidden agenda, and full of disinformation,” when your own article is quite misleading about who did what.
So, the two reports are about different departments and different issues with funding reporting, but you’ve conflated them in order to spin a false narrative about continued bad behaviour. Here in Australia, we’re just as cynical about self-serving bureaucracy and pork-barrelling pollies, but when the discussion moves from idle gossip to printed media, there’s usually at least a modicum of effort put into substantiating claims and delineating the players in the story.
If you have problem with the US spending a single cent on the IPCC, then that’s fine. Just make your case with more attention to the facts. I note that you’ve already responded positively to corrections upthread on the money trail.
For the US bean-counters, the average contribution to the IPCC from each US tax payer is 1 – 2 cents a year. Maybe it’s not worth your cholesterol uptake.
I also found out that the IPCC got $12.1 million dollars from the US Global Change Research Program. That one really angrifies my blood. The IPCC flat out states that they do not do a single scrap of scientific research … so why is the US Global Change Research Program giving them a dime, much less twelve million, that was supposed to go for research? I could use that for my research, for example …
I would not give either you or the IPCC a single dime or penny for any of your work, except that someone is holding a loaded gun to my child’s father’s head.
I have to credit you for at least not hiding your agenda on that matter.
barry says:
January 10, 2012 at 10:27 pm
barry, I can tell that reading must be hard for you. That’s why I noted in big old quotes above the following. The GAO said that the information on the secretive IPCC funding:
See the part about where they say the information was “not available”, barry?
Let’s review the bidding here. The GAO, the US Government agency charged with making sure such financial data is available and correct, and with hundreds of bureaucrats to track it down, says that the data was “not available”. It provides a stack of information and documents to back up their claim.
Lower-case barry, on the other hand, a random angry anonymous poster on the internet, says the data was “widely known”. To back up his claim, he provides … well … he provides nothing but a condescending attitude and an artful sneer.
I’m sure you see the problem, barry …
w.