**UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the world’s science academies to review work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).**Work will be co-ordinated by the Inter-Academy Council, which brings together bodies such as the UK’s Royal Society.
The IPCC has been under pressure over small errors in its last major assessment of climate science in 2007.
Mr Ban said the overall concept of man-made climate change was robust, and action to curb emissions badly needed.
The Inter-Academy Council will convene a panel of experts to conduct the review.
Robbert Dijkgraaf, the council’s co-chair, said the process would be independent of UN agencies. Scientists would be selected so the panel included both inside knowledge of the IPCC and outside perspectives.
“The panel will look forward and will definitely not go over all the vast amount of data in climate science,” he said.
“It will see what are the [IPCC’s] procedures, and how can they be improved, so we can avoid certain types of errors.”
Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC’s chair, welcomed the move.
“The IPCC stands firmly behind the rigour and reliability of its Fourth Assessment Report from 2007, but we recognise that we can improve,” he said.
“We have listened and learned from our critics, and we intend to take every action we can to ensure that our reports are as robust as possible.”
The review was demanded by world governments at last month’s meeting of the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep).
The council has been asked to finalise its conclusions by August.