The politics of climate change have become mired in yet another controversy. Allegations of conflict of interest appeared in the blogosphere after it was discovered that one of the authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN) is also a prominent advocate for renewable energy with Greenpeace. Two commentaries discussing this have appeared in Nature Climate Change, one arguing that the report may be biased and the other saying that the claims are unfounded.

The facts

The report, released on June 14, discusses scientific and technological issues related to six renewable energy sources (bioenergy, solar, geothermal, hydropower, ocean, and wind) as well as integration issues, costs, and policy recommendations. The conflict-of-interest controversy is centered on chapter 10, where the report evaluates 164 existing scenarios for renewable energy deployment. The authors focused on four of these for more in-depth analysis and discussion.

One of the four scenarios (the most optimistic) has 77 percent of the 2050 global energy demand met using renewable sources. It's based on a study performed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) but commissioned by Greenpeace. This scenario formed the basis of a Greenpeace report as well as a peer-reviewed article that appeared in the journal Energy Efficiency; both of these were written (in part) by Sven Teske. Teske is one of the lead authors of chapter 10 of the SRREN. Some people are arguing that this is a conflict of interest, and that the assessments of the report are biased due to this author’s affiliation.

The other main issue people are criticizing is the prominent mention of this scenario in the press release (which was then repeated by the world media), and the fact that the press release and Summary for Policy Makers (SPM) were released a month ahead of the full report (with references and author lists). However, neither the press release nor the SPM present this scenario as the most likely, but rather note it was the most optimistic considered, and provided an upper limit for the assessment. The material also highlighted the low scenario, at 15 percent renewables.

The first commentary was written by Mark Lynas, a climate change commentator and writer based in the UK, and it reflected the arguments he made a recent blog post. Lynas suggests that the mere appearance of a conflict of interest is an issue, regardless of whether it can actually be proven. He argues that the Working Group III, the organizers behind the SRREN, disregarded the conflict-of-interest recommendations of the Working Group I, which appear to address this specific issue: “The assessment must be ‘neutral with respect to policy’, and therefore an IPCC Author cannot be, at the same time, in a leading position of an NGO working towards specific policies.”

However, this recommendation applies to authors on the board of an NGO, and recommends that the author resign from the board. In this case, Teske is certainly a member of Greenpeace, but not a member of its board.

In his blog post, Lynas tries to put the controversy in perspective by considering the opposing scenario, one where an Exxon-Mobil employee served as an author on an IPCC report discussing the future of fossil fuels—he suggests that Greenpeace would be outraged at this conflict of interest. There is certainly an argument to be made there, but I’m not sure the comparison is fair. While one of Greenpeace’s goals is certainly the increased use of renewable energy sources, Exxon-Mobil actually profits from the use of fossil fuels.

The second article was written by Ottmar Edenhofer, one of the SRREN’s coordinating lead authors and head of the Research Domain Sustainable Solutions at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). He defended the neutrality and unbiased conclusions of the report. Edenhofer says that it is the mission of the group to evaluate the full range of scenarios for renewable energy development, of which the Greenpeace-related scenario is the most optimistic; the report doesn’t endorse a specific proposal or scenario. He emphasizes that the scenario discussed in the SRREN was based on that appearing in a peer-reviewed journal, and that the Greenpeace report itself was not part of the assessment.

Edenhofer disagrees that there was any conflict of interest in the findings of the report. All IPCC reports include a team of experts in the relevant areas reviewing the literature—naturally, that might include their own work. Indeed, the National Academies of Sciences, whose policies the IPCC share, says that reviewing your own work isn’t a conflict of interest if that work is relevant to the review. For this particular report, the entire team of authors selected the scenarios for the chapter, so no author was able to choose their own work over others.

The controversy?

Lynas claims that Teske was given a "pole position" among the lead authors, but there doesn’t appear to be any evidence supporting this. Teske was one of nine lead authors of chapter 10, with two coordinating lead authors, one additional contributing author, and two review editors. The whole point of these teams is to ensure that one opinion isn’t dominant and the resulting assessments are unbiased. The blog posts and Lynas’s commentary make it sound like Teske was the sole author of the chapter and press release, but this is clearly not the case.

Lynas also takes issue with the fact that the scenario in question apparently comes from a Greenpeace report “rather than being solely an independent IPCC conclusion.” But the assessments in the SRREN only considered existing scenarios. No new scenarios were created for the report, and this particular scenario was drawn from a scientific journal article.

While Teske’s affiliation with an advocacy group such as Greenpeace may be questionable, a group of renewable energy experts such as the one organized for this report will naturally include some advocates for the greater use of renewables. The affiliations of all authors contributing in some way to the report are posted in annex IV, and I count 25 authors from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory—certainly experts, but also likely to be advocates. In fact, one of the other lead authors of chapter 10 is affiliated with the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica, while three authors in other sections are from Chevron, for example—groups unlikely to be on the same side of renewable energy as Greenpeace.

The delay between the release of the SPM and the full report (over a month) is problematic, since only the full report includes the references. There's unlikely to be anything hidden here, but it's always best to have coverage of these reports be as informed as possible. If a press release goes out, then everything should be available.

There were other problems with the press release, including the fact that the 77 percent scenario was cited in the first sentence. That looks bad, even though Sven Teske was not involved in its writing. Teske wasn't a lead author on the SPM, either, and that's likely the most influential of the documents released.

It seems much of this controversy is the product of a bit too much of a hook in the press release, rather than an activist hijacking an IPCC report. In the future, organizations such as the IPCC should be more careful with the conclusions they include in a press release to avoid any appearances of conflicts of interest. But the controversy here appears to be more manufactured than genuine.

Nature Climate Change, 2011. DOI: 10.1038/nclimate1178, 10.1038/nclimate1177 (About DOIs)

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