“Downplaying the worst impacts of climate change has led the scientific authors to omit crucial information from the summary for policymakers,” said one reviewer, Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. “However, if governments do not recognise the full scale and urgency of the risks, they may underestimate how critical it is to meet the goal of the Paris agreement on climate change. Reviewers of earlier drafts say it is being altered to make the dangers of climate change seem less alarming. “The scientists who produce reports like these try to summarise the latest knowledge, but they have a reputation for being conservative about the worst risks of climate change,” Ward said. Even if it is removed from the summary for policymakers, the finding it is based on remains in the main report.”

Source: The Guardian September 23, 2018 06:56 UTC