While the UN reports are often described as scientific and peer-reviewed, this claim of the Amazon being at high risk originated on a website of a Brazilian advocacy group. (…)
Professor Ross McKintrick says no one should be surprised that such mistakes end up in these massive reports.
“The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) doesn’t have the internal rigour that one would expect of it,” said McKintrick from his office at the University of Guelph. “Nothing is in the process to prevent activist rhetoric from appearing.” McKintrick, who teaches environmental economics and has had his own battles with the accuracy of climate change reports, says the calculations used in the UN reports are often not checked for accuracy and even the much-vaunted peer-review process does not guarantee that the information used is correct.
