Environmental fascism and junk science

Greenpeace's key role in UN climate study

THE United Nation's peak climate change body has become embroiled in new controversy over its use of Greenpeace and renewable energy industry propaganda in a landmark study on alternative energy.

A headline briefing on the IPCC's special report on the potential of renewable energy, released in Abu Dhabi on June 9, said close to 80 per cent of the world's energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century, if backed by the right enabling public policies.

Release of the full report this week showed the assumption was based on a real-terms decline in worldwide energy consumption over the next 40 years and was the most optimistic of the 164 investigated by the IPCC.

Reduced demand for electricity was assumed, despite a projected increase in global population of two billion and greater affluence in the highly populated countries such as China and India.

Critics of the IPCC report claim the original research was contained in a joint publication of Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council, self-described as the "umbrella organisation of the European renewable energy industry". Greenpeace International campaigner Sven Teske wrote the original publication and was a lead author on the IPCC document.

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The affair has developed into a new scandal for the IPCC, dogged by criticism over the quality of some of its research material.

Activist and author Mark Lynas said: "A more scandalous conflict of interest could scarcely be imagined. This campaigner for Greenpeace was not only embedded in the IPCC itself, but was, in effect, allowed to review and promote his own campaigning work under the cover of the authoritative and trustworthy IPCC.

"While the journal-published version looks like proper science, the propaganda version on the Greenpeace website has all the hallmarks of a piece of work that started with some conclusions and then set about justifying them."

The original IPCC release said the summary was a short version of a roughly 1000-page comprehensive assessment compiled by more than 120 leading experts from around the world for IPCC's Working Group III.

It said that, under the most optimistic of four in-depth scenarios, renewable energy would account for as much as 77 per cent of the world's energy demand by 2050, amounting to more than three times the annual energy supply in the US in 2005.

The 77 per cent figure is up from just under 13 per cent of the total primary energy supply in 2008. The lowest of the four scenarios forecast renewable energy accounting for a share of 15 per cent in 2050.

The full IPCC report says more than half of the scenarios show a contribution from renewable energy in excess of a 17 per cent share of primary energy supply in 2030, rising to more than 27 per cent in 2050. The scenarios with the highest renewable energy shares reach about 43 per cent in 2030 and 77 per cent in 2050.

Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven said: "Exxon, Chevron and the French nuclear operator EDF also contribute to the IPCC, so to paint this expert UN body as a wing of Greenpeace is preposterous."