Nearly six in ten climate scientists don’t adhere to the so-called “consensus” on man-made climate change, a new study by the Dutch government has found. The results contradict the oft-cited claim that there is a 97 percent consensus amongst climate scientists that humans are responsible for global warming.

The study, by the PBL Netherlands Environment Assessment Agency, a government body, invited 6550 scientists working in climate related fields, including climate physics, climate impact, and mitigation, to take part in a survey on their views of climate science.

Of the 1868 who responded, just 43 percent agreed with the IPCC that “It is extremely likely {95%+ certainty} that more than half of [global warming] from 1951 to 2010 was caused by [human activity]”. Even with the “don’t knows” removed that figure increases only to 47 percent, still leaving a majority of climate scientists who do not subscribe to the IPCC’s statement.

The findings directly contradict the claim that 97 percent of climate scientists endorse the view that humans are responsible for global warming, as first made by Cook et al in a paper published in Environment Research Letters.

Cook’s paper has since been extremely widely debunked, yet so ingrained has the 97 percent consensus claim become that The Guardian has an entire section named after it, and President Obama has cited it on Twitter.

Commenting on the new study, Australian climate blogger Joanne Nova said: “Finally there is a decent survey on the topic, and it shows that less than half of what we would call “climate scientists” who research the topic and for the most part, publish in the peer reviewed literature, would agree with the IPCC’s main conclusions. Only 43% of climate scientists agree with the IPCC “97%” certainty.”

The authors of the study warn that climate sceptics may be slightly over-represented, given the small pool of responses. But as the scientists invited to participate were picked for having published work that included the phrases “global warming” or “global climate change”, Nova counters that, to the contrary, they are likely to be under-represented.

“Given that sceptics get sacked, rarely get grants to research, and find it harder to get published, they are under-represented in every way in the “certified” pool of publishing climate scientists. Sceptical scientists, I dare say, would be much less likely to use the keyword phrase “global warming” in the papers they do publish. I imagine it’s easier to get papers published that don’t specifically poke the mainstream buttons,” she noted.

However, mounting evidence against climate change theory and the ‘consensus’ is unlikely to stem the tide of policy designed to combat global warming, thanks to the sheer size of the climate change industry that has built up over the last few decades.

New estimates published by the Climate Change Business Journal put the total size of the industry at $1.5 trillion a year, or $4 billion a day, equivalent to the size of the global online retail market. The figure includes carbon markets, carbon consulting, biofuels, carbon sequestration, renewable technologies, eco buildings and hybrid cars.

The climate change consultancy market alone is worth $1.9 billion worldwide; $670 million in the United States, thanks to businesses need to keep on top of climate policy. And these figures are expected to more than double by 2020.

“Most industries this size exist because they produce something the market wants,” commented Nova. “They worry that competitors might chip into their market share, but they don’t worry that the market might disappear overnight. Normal industries fear that a “bad” political outcome might reduce profits by ten or twenty percent, and sometimes they donate “both ways”. But the climate industry has literally a trillion on the table that depends on big-government policy and election outcomes.

“So while The Guardian worries about the dark and evil influence of the fossil fuels industry they don’t seem at all concerned about the vested-monster-in-the-kitchen, the 1.5 Trillion Climate Industry. Ditto for the intrepid souls at the ABC/BBC/CBC who think they speak truth to power, but miss the most powerful lobby in the climate debate.”