
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change should aim to restore public confidence as well as reassert its leadership at its ongoing plenary meeting in Busan, South Korea, the head of the United Nations Environment Program said.
>> UNEP Chief Achim Steiner on Climate Change and the MDGs
UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner noted that recent controversies involving IPCC have “certainly had consequences in terms of public opinion and the public policy arena.”
Steiner explained that the outcome of the Busan meeting will inevitably affect public reception of IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report, which the body is set to release between 2013 and 2014.
“Indeed, a rigorous, credible and convincing [report] – at least in terms of the global public – may in part rest on your decisions here in terms of this scientific body and the way it operates and communicates,” Steiner said in his message to the plenary meeting.