After ‘Glaciergate,’ UN Panel on Climate Change Mulls Reforms

In March, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asked a committee of leading academics to review the work of one of the world’s most prestigious scientific bodies: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC, as it is often called, won the Nobel Prize in 2007 with Al Gore for its work on global warming. That year, the IPCC reported with more than 90 percent certainty that global warming was real, and that it was “very likely” caused by human activity.

As it turns out, there were some embarrassing errors in that report, and critics have seized on the mistakes as evidence that the IPCC’s work is flawed. The panel charged with investigating the IPCC recently released the results of its five-month review, along with a slew of recommendations for how the body could improve its work and regain the public trust. The full body of the IPCC will consider the recommendations at a meeting in Korea next month.

Need to Know’s Alison Stewart talks with the man who led the investigation, Harold Shapiro, a former Princeton University president and bioethics adviser to Bill Clinton. Shapiro explains how the mistakes have hurt the IPCC, how the panel has reacted to his findings, and whether the problems he discovered surprised him.

This podcast was produced by Need to Know as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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