UN and U.S. Officials Mount Defense of Science Behind Global Warming

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Lisa P. Jackson, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, have reasserted that the science behind global warming is incontrovertible and that government officials should reject attempts to derail climate change initiatives because of errors in reports by the UN’s panel on global warming. Referring to mistakes in a 2007 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Ban said in a message to environmental ministers meeting in Indonesia, “To maintain the momentum, I urge you to reject last-ditch attempts by climate skeptics to derail your [climate] negotiations by exaggerating shortcomings in the [IPCC] report.” Speaking before a U.S. Senate committee, Jackson — whose agency has vowed to regulate greenhouse gas emissions even if Congress fails to pass climate legislation — said, “The science behind climate change is settled, and human activity is responsible for global warming… I do not agree that the IPCC has been totally discredited in any way.”