Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true! (H. J. Simpson)

At least three members of 4CMR will be lead authors for the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC. This is something to be proud of – the IPCC has managed to coordinate the key experts in order to present and evaluate the wide range of research findings on climate science, for which it is a Nobel Prize recipient. The quality of its reports make it a crucial resource for climate researchers, a point of reference for decision makers, and an independent organisation through which climate change has become an issue of global importance.

And yet, there seem to be suggestions that the IPCC model – by which I mean a panel comprising many of the world’s leading experts that review all relevant material with a view to consider the state of the field – has been discredited. Newspaper headlines about “serious errors in Himalayan glacier projections” based on poorly substantiated estimates or the “withholding and manipulation of data” said to be derived from hacked email content, have certainly had a negative impact on the profile of the IPCC.

Monthly Update

There are only two or three blogs that I keep up with on a regular basis. The problem isn't that bloggers don't update their blogs regularly, but that they update them when they don't have much to say. To avoid this 4CMR will ask different members of the team to write the monthly update on a topic worth blogging about.

4CMR - Foreseeing Mitigation

The Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation, or 4CMR, is an interdisciplinary research centre within the Department of Land Economy at the University of Cambridge. Our Objective is to foresee strategies, policies and processes that are effective in human-induced climate change.

Our focus is to undertake high quality research addressing issues related to the mitigation of climate change. We are a small group of researchers but have expertise in a wide range of research topics. We also work with a wide variety of groups and organisations on some cutting edge research. This blog will present some of this research in an informal way. We hope it will generate some discussion and provide feedback, which can only improve our research and its dissemination.