The UN’s panel on climate science has missed an opportunity that will take until 2014 to rectify.

The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was heavily criticised when an error in its last report received global coverage. The report claimed that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 – a glaring misinterpretation of the facts for which the IPCC had to back down and apologise.

The result has been a worldwide loss of credibility in the IPCC and the climate scientists that are responsible for its reports – which are published every four years. Dismayed by the implications of this loss of confidence, the UN appointed the InterAcademy Council (IAC) to examine the IPCC’s procedures.

IPCC meeting in Busan, South Korea

The resulting recommendations and their implementation were the principal reason for the IPCC meeting this week in Busan, South Korea. Attended by 400 delegates representing the 194 nations that comprise the IPCC, the meeting concluded that change was essential and that a task force would be responsible for putting the IAC’s proposals into effect.

One of the key IAC proposals was that the IPCC chairman should serve only one six-year term, rather than the current maximum of two, which would require that the current chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, steps down. He has been under continuous pressure to leave his post since the revelation of the glacier error but he told delegates in Busan that he has no intention of relinquishing his position until the publication of the next report in 2014.

This means that the necessary far-reaching reforms: greater transparency, tighter fact-checking, and defined procedures for addressing potential errors and reviewing reports from the hundreds of scientists that voluntarily submit papers, will rely on the current chairman for implementation. It also means that public opinion, already anti-Pachauri, will harden in its scepticism towards the whole subject of global warming.

The implications for the development of a low carbon car industry

Why is this of relevance to Ultra Low Carbon cars? It is because national governments and supra national bodies such as the European Union need to be able to draw on an accurate and objective assessment of climate science in order to determine what policy decisions they make in this area. In our case, it has a direct bearing on policies aimed at the reduction of emissions from internal combustion engines and the resulting degree to which governments will promote the development of an electric vehicle industry.

When Pachauri said in Busan that he will step down in 2014 it not only played directly into the hands of those vested interests for whom climate change is an inconvenient and unwelcome intrusion, but it raises doubts in the minds of people who may be considering the purchase of an electric vehicle.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon must act and do so, soon.