"Mockery of science": Energy Department climate report riddled with errors
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Dozens of climate scientists on Tuesday released a detailed rebuttal of the Energy Department's contrarian climate report, alleging "pervasive problems" with the work.
Why it matters: DOE's July report informs EPA's planned repeal of the "endangerment finding" — the legal underpinning of federal emissions regulations.
- The response could easily find its way into litigation over EPA's plan.
Driving the news: Texas A&M's Andrew Dessler and Rutgers' Robert Kopp organized the response.
- DOE's report "does not meet standards of quality, utility, objectivity and integrity appropriate for use in supporting policy making," the two write.
- The section-by-section response — which alleges numerous errors and omissions — runs over 430 pages and has over 80 contributors.
- They're submitting it as part of the formal record on EPA's proposed repeal and the DOE report.
Catch up quick: DOE's "critical review" of greenhouse gas impacts is authored by five scientists known for splitting with mainstream climate researchers.
- It gets into the "greening" and agricultural benefits of higher CO2 levels; disputes whether climate change is making hurricanes more intense; and disagrees with many scientists on the potential lower bound of expected warming from doubling CO2 concentrations, among many divides.
- "Climate change is a challenge — not a catastrophe. But misguided policies based on fear rather than facts could truly endanger human well-being," Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in the foreword.
Between the lines: Dessler said the authors have no specific policy goals as a group.
- "When I read the DOE report, I saw a document that does not respect science," he tells Axios via email. "Instead, I saw a document that's a mockery of science."
- "And I thought to myself, I can't let this go without a response," Dessler said.
- He and the dozens of scientists behind today's document say DOE fell badly short on topics like health risks; claims that models overestimate warming; and the relationship between climate change and forest fires, to name just a few.
Zoom in: Even in areas of broad agreement, it alleges misleading framing.
- Take the notorious RCP8.5, an increasingly implausible scenario that assumes runaway CO2 increases for decades and massive temperature rise.
- DOE's report slams what it says is academics' overreliance on it and its presentation as a business-as-usual scenario.
- "In cases where researchers have used RCP8.5 as a simple prediction of future emissions — this critique is valid," the rebuttal states.
- But it challenges the allegation that the UN's influential climate science body has misused it, for instance.
What we're watching: The rebuttal's role in court battles if the endangerment finding repeal is finalized.
- It "will be in front of the judges," Michael Gerrard, the founder of Columbia's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, tells Axios in an email.
- "EPA will need to respond to the report in detail as part of its final decision on the endangerment finding. If EPA's response is inadequate, that will become one basis of the inevitable litigation challenging the revocation of the endangerment finding," he said.
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