Dear Sir,
Climate Commissioner Prof. Tim Flannery appeared on ABC's Radio National today (see link below) discussing a new report issued by the Chinese Government (Title is: Second National Assessment Report on Climate Change, but I can't find a copy on the WWW-update-now have at Amazon China thanks to Reuters, but it's in Chinese).
Can the secretariat confirm that Prof. Flannery based his responses to questions in the radio national interview on media articles about the report, rather than the actual report itself?
If so, does the commission consider that relying on third hand information about the science of climate change, as revealed in media articles, meets the commission's aims "to provide a reliable and authoritative source of information on climate change"?
In the interview Prof Flannery stated "over 80% of their glaciers are now retreating" giving the impression that over 80% of glaciers in China are retreating. However a Reuters report (link below) indicates the figure refers to glaciers in Tibet only. Given the media report is accurate will the commission correct Prof. Flannery's misrepresentation of the facts?
Radio National Interview
Reuters Report
"Since the 1950s, over 82 percent of glaciers have been in a state of retreat, and the pace has accelerated since the 1990s," the report says of China's glaciers in Tibet and nearby areas that feed major rivers.
Regards
ABC NEWS WATCH
UPDATE: We asked Reuters if they could provide a link to the original report, here's what they said:
I'm sorry I don't have a link to an Internet version; only a hard copy of the report in Chinese. I heard there is an English-language summary available, although possibly not online yet -- I looked for it and couldn't find it. If you read Chinese, you can buy copies via Amazon's Chinese service.
Seems our climate commissioner must also have expertise in Mandarin, funny that I haven't heard it mentioned before!
UPDATE: We asked Reuters if they could provide a link to the original report, here's what they said:
I'm sorry I don't have a link to an Internet version; only a hard copy of the report in Chinese. I heard there is an English-language summary available, although possibly not online yet -- I looked for it and couldn't find it. If you read Chinese, you can buy copies via Amazon's Chinese service.
Seems our climate commissioner must also have expertise in Mandarin, funny that I haven't heard it mentioned before!
interesting heading for this story. must say that I'm surprised to see a criticism of 'clean energy' proponents by auntie abc.
ReplyDeleteyes, the climate commissioner appears to fudge facts ad lib.
not your brief, but it would be refreshing to see the abc conduct a review of the commissioner's predictions, lined up against what actually happened.
to my mind, the commissioner's (and others) lack of due diligence in researching climate science (thus promoting the 'global warming agenda') leaves much to be desired.