More than 25 U.S. senators, led by Oklahoma Republican Jim Inhofe, are calling for an independent investigation of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the wake of the Climategate scandal.
Inhofe, ranking member on the Environment and Public Works Committee, outlined several reasons for an independent investigation in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is among those who signed the letter.
Speaking at The Heritage Foundation this week, Inhofe said he had no confidence in the United Nations’ conducting an investigation of its own panel. “The U.N. isn’t accountable to anyone,” he argued, highlighting the problem of rooting out possible corruption in the IPCC.
“The investigation must be conducted without political interference and manipulation from individual countries, non-governmental organizations, those within the U.N., those who have contributed to the IPCC, those being investigated, or any closely related associates,” Inhofe wrote in the letter (PDF).
During his Heritage Foundation visit to The Bloggers Briefing on Tuesday, Inhofe noted how 10 years ago he began calling for his colleagues to slow down in taking action on climate change. Worried about the high costs estimated for action on climate change, Inhofe began his own investigation into the validity of the science behind the theory.
He found that many scientists he talked to, including some from the IPCC, had been intimidated by the larger scientific community to stay quiet about their skepticism. Through these investigations he realized that the science had been “cooked.”
Since then Inhofe has been leading the fight against climate change hysteria. The latest chapter in this fight has unfolded with the Climategate scandal. In light of evidence that not only has data been ignored and manipulated, but that dissenting voices were silenced, Inhofe vowed to aggressively pursue an independent investigation.
There is precedent for an investigation. Irregularities in the U.N.’s Oil for Food Program led to an independent inquiry from Paul Volcker.
When asked what it feels like to be proven right after all these years, he simply answered, “It’s called redemption.”
With the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in full swing, his timing couldn’t be better.
“Countries from around the globe are in the process of negotiating agreements that could result in trillions of dollars of expenditures to mitigate the impacts of climate change,” Inhofe wrote. “We believe the actions proposed thus far are too costly and ineffective to address the task at hand. While we may disagree on policy, we should be able to agree that any such policies proposed rest on an accurate, credible, and objective scientific foundation.”
