Yes, it’s true. The forthcoming IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C has been formally accused of ‘pulling its punches’ in order to let polluters off the hook by none other than Bob Ward, policy wonk at the Grantham Institute. The Graun, of course, has the story.

Warnings about the dangers of global warming are being watered down in the final version of a key climate report for a major international meeting next month, according to reviewers who have studied earlier versions of the report and its summary.

They say scientists working on the final draft of the summary are censoring their own warnings and “pulling their punches” to make policy recommendations seem more palatable to countries – such as the US, Saudi Arabia and Australia – that are reluctant to cut fossil-fuel emissions, a key cause of global warming. “Downplaying the worst impacts of climate change has led the scientific authors to omit crucial information from the summary for policymakers,” said one reviewer, Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.

OMG, they left out the really bad bits! The tail end high risk scenarios beloved of climate catastrophists the world over. The highly implausible but theoretically possible scenarios which alarmists have for years relied upon to drive their regressive energy and transport policies like a sustainable coach and horses through legislative obstacles.

Bob obligingly confirms:

“However, if governments do not recognise the full scale and urgency of the risks, they may underestimate how critical it is to meet the goal of the Paris agreement on climate change. And that could have very serious knock-on effects in the battle to limit the impact of global warming.”

So what did they leave out? According to the Graun, the following:

Any mention that temperature rises of above 1.5C could lead to increased migrations and conflict;

All discussion of the danger of the Gulf Stream being disrupted by cold water flowing from the Arctic where more and more sea-ice is melting;

Warnings about the dangers that 1.5–2C temperature rises could trigger irreversible loss of the Greenland ice sheet and raise sea levels by 1–2 metres over the next two centuries.

But . . . . muh climate refugees and climate change wars, muh Gulf Stream collapse, muh disappearing Greenland and and muh Deluge! ‘Science’ says all this can happen with another half degree temperature rise! To add to the amusement, the author seems to think that melting sea-ice (frozen salt water) will contribute to a slowing of the Gulf Stream, when it is in fact melting fresh water from Greenland glaciers which could conceivably dilute salty Arctic waters sufficiently to slow down the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation.

Scientists who actually contribute to IPCC reports do disagree with Ward however, even Peter Stott and Piers Forster:

Completely disagree with Bob here, we serve community best with evidence-based summaries that are fair, balanced and factual https://t.co/Br8XAkHCbL — Piers Forster (@piersforster) September 23, 2018

No. The IPCC has a rigorous review process, as it should do. This inevitably results in some changes. The examples given are still in the main report, where there is room for discussion of the uncertainties and nuances, they are just not in the summary. — Mark McCarthy (@markpmcc) September 23, 2018

Indeed no. There will inevitably be sentences that are cut from previous drafts of the SPM and as @markpmcc says they remain in the main report. @IPCC_CH authors don't water down findings to placate governments. Real qn is: will governments accept findings of science at plenary? — Peter Stott (@StottPeter) September 23, 2018

Bob’s looking pretty stupid and out on a limb here. Nothing much new then.