World leaders must see beyond emails

Do the email exchanges hacked from the University of East Anglia computers indicate skulduggery? I cannot comment. The proposed enquiry will surely settle that point. What I can say is that after six years as a ‘lay’ member of the Natural Environment Research Council board, I encountered only a determination amongst climate scientists to get the science as right as possible.Nevertheless, it should not be a surprise that there are those who dispute the science around climate change. Search for an academic to back any outlandish point of view, and you will find one, with motivations ranging from the muddled to the malevolent. The massive amount of money the fossil fuel industry pours into promoting the malevolent objective of climate denial helps it gain more ‘air time’ for its views than it deserves. As does the laziness of the media in giving equal coverage to for-and-against formats for arguments, regardless of the weighting of the evidence. (Remember the damage done by one doctor’s views about the MMR vaccine?)A naturally disputatious species, the really extraordinary thing about climate scientists is that so many agree about so much! The 2007 report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) represents the output of 2500 expert reviewers, 800 authors, and 140 political leaders from over 130 countries. It would take more than one bad apple in UEA or anywhere else to negate those overall conclusions, which are increasingly confirmed by the evidence of our own eyes.As world experts and leaders gather in Copenhagen for the number- and word-crunching part of the process, lets wish them wisdom and luck, and hope they are not put off the biggest political leadership challenge ever - making decisions now about commitments which will have a pay-off period beyond their term of office.