Big Ooops From UN Climate Panel

Factual errors in a major UN climate report from 2007 have been made public. And now the apologies and explanations begin. The statements in the UN report on melting Himalayan glaciers were not based on research apparently. Or else an actual scientific report was "misquoted." And the UN's summary report even gave the wrong figure for Himalayan glacier landmass.

This has now earned the UN panel such headlines as: "blunders again." "UN pledges tighter controls after melting glaciers blunder." "Four more Himalayan howlers." "IPCC Scientist: Fake Data Used To Put Pressure On World Leaders."

This revelation will make it even harder to convince many reluctant governments to take any action on greenhouse gases. It will make the politics of climate change even more contentious in India itself. The chairman of the UN's international panel on climate change is an Indian scientist who now has been attacked for profiting on grants to study Himalayan glacial melt. That raises a question of conflict of interest in addition to the false data revelation.