Search Results for “Richard Tol”

Former UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Toll: ‘Abandon emissions targets altogether’ – Explains ‘the money for CO2 removal will go to large multinational companies’

November 21, 2023

Dr. Richard Tol: The money for CO₂ removal will go to large multinational companies who operate in faraway countries in order to help solve a remote problem. It is hard to get votes for such a subsidy, harder if that subsidy is really large.

Decarbonizing the economy at a more leisurely pace will still require tax reform – but to a much smaller extent, one that is well in line with historical precedent. It would be even better to abandon emissions targets altogether and instead steer climate policy on its cost.

Former UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol: ‘Climate change’ is ‘not the apocalypse’ – Warns of ‘misguided fear of doom’

August 23, 2023

Dr. Richard Tol: “Climate change is a problem, but not the apocalypse. The misguided fear of doom causes extremism and exaggerated climate protection policies.”

“The environmental movement is massive. Its leaders need to bring in lots of people and donations because they derive their power and influence from that. The story of the apocalypse as a vehicle for climate change neatly ties in with painting emissions as sin and emission reduction as atonement. It is a brilliant marketing ploy.”

“Global average crop yields have increased three-fold over the last 60 years. If that trend continues and climate change takes away half, we will grow roughly the same amount of food, per head, in 2085 as we do today…if farmers would use current best practice, not some yet-to-be-invented future technology, they would get 10 times as much produce from their land. Let climate change take away half and they still grow 5 times as much.”

Dr. Richard Tol on Gulf Stream slowdown: ‘Cooling is probably a good bit more harmful than warming’ Gulf Stream slowdown to spare Europe from worst of climate change

July 11, 2016

UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol bolts warmist narrative: Calls Gore’s claims ‘complete madness’

January 7, 2016

Via: http://cliscep.com/2016/01/06/interviews-with-richard-tol/ There’s an interesting blog based in Belgium called Trust, yet verify. If you’re not familiar with it, do take a look, there are plenty of good posts there. The blogger, Michel, describes in a series of posts starting here how he started out as a devout believer in what we were being told about the climate crisis, then started to look into it in more detail, asked questions, was not satisfied by the answers and the tone in which they were delivered, and gradually became more sceptical – a very familiar story. Tol is one of the most highly cited researchers in the field and an IPCC author, writing for WG2 about economic impacts. The world is in uproar about the climate, but you claim that climate change is not a problem? Tol: “There is no reason to believe that climate change is so terrible at the moment. Unless you raise funds for Greenpeace or are a politician who presents themself as the savior of mankind: then you gain by exaggerating things. The reality is that the climate hardly affects our wellbeing and our prosperity. There are happy and rich people living in boiling hot Singapore, but also in freezing cold Canada. There are unhappy and poor people in boiling hot Kenya but also stone cold Mongolia. Climate change is not the main environmental problem. Dirty air causes currently roughly four million deaths each year.” Are you concerned that the future of your children is at risk due to climate change? Tol: “Not for a moment. It disturbs me hearing people like Al Gore say that he is worried about the future of his grandchildren. Complete madness. The best estimate is that sea level will rise half a meter this century. That is from the ground to our knees. The Netherlands has the money and the knowledge to do something about it. It is the poorest who are affected by climate change. It is the grandchildren of the people in a country like Bangladesh who are at risk from rising sea levels. But why are we suddenly concerned about the grandchildren of people that we care little about? Poverty is a bigger problem than climate change. Do you help the poor by reducing greenhouse gas emissions or by fighting poverty? An important question for which no one has a clear answer yet.” There is also a follow-up post on a short response in the same newspaper in which an environmental activist attacks Tol, falsely claiming that he thinks only money matters and that his views contradict common sense. Another much longer interview with Tol was carried out by BBC correspondent Roger Harrabin for his pre-Paris series on Radio 4. The full transcript is available at Carbon Brief. This interview also illustrates the bias and prejudice of Harrabin: he illustrates my point about painting, by noting that Tol is on the advisory panel ofGWPF, but incorrectly describing GWPF as “a climate skeptic lobby group” (in fact they are a think tank, not a lobby group, with no official or shared view, as Harrabin could have found out if he had looked at their website). Then there’s this question from Harrabin: “Just looking at you now and from the point of view of the listeners, you look rather different from the average climate contrarian. They tend to be suited and booted and you have long hair and beard and a t-shirt. It’s a different look.” Again, from the point of view of activists like Harrabin, anyone who dares to question imminent disaster is a ‘contrarian’. But “suited and booted”? Has Harrabin met the pony-tailed Jonathan Jones? Or any members of the Cliscep team? From this interview we learn that Richard Tol used to be a member of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. His early research was on the statistical link between greenhouse gases and climate change. He set out to prove Nordhaus’s low carbon price argument wrong – but ended up proving Nordhaus right. There is huge uncertainty in the impact and economic cost of carbon dioxide emissions. The UK is a model for how not to implement climate policy. He supports a modest carbon tax, and opposes subsidies for green energy systems. Many of the more dramatic impacts of climate change are really symptoms of mismanagement and poverty. There’s also quite a bit about his withdrawal from the IPCC Summary team, on the grounds of their excessive alarmism, and his view on the benefits of warming, and much more. # Related Links: UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Mocks UN Climate Treaty Process As ‘Futile Effort’ Where Countries ‘Pretend To Reduce Emissions’ UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Rips 97% consensus claim: ‘The 97% is essentially pulled from thin air, it is not based on any credible research whatsoever’ ‘It’s All Wrong’: UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol slams media for false claims about alleged 97% consensus NYT: John Kerry ‘hopes to use his position as secretary of state to achieve a legacy on global warming that has long eluded him’ Global warming causes polygamy?! Dr. Richard Tol mocks: ‘Men marry multiple wives to beat drought’ – ‘Cue claims that climate change will turn us all into bigamists’ UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Corrects Obama: The 97‰ ‘consensus’ is a ‘bogus number’ UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Debunks ‘97% Consensus’ Claim – Tol says. ‘[The IPCC’s] reputation of competence was shredded by the climate community’s celebration of the flawed works of Michael Mann’ ‘If you want to believe that climate researchers are incompetent, biased and secretive, Cook’s (97%) paper is an excellent case in point.’ The paper only claims that 97 percent of the scientific literature that takes a position on climate change (most does not) supports man-made global warming hypotheses. Yet supporters have used it to claim that 97 percent of scientists support global warming theories; they do not. “In fact, about three-quarters of the papers counted as endorsements had nothing to say about the subject matter,” Tol says. UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Mocks climate hype: ‘2015: the most crucial year for decades in the climate battle as were 1992, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2009′ UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Laments: ‘Politically correct climate change orthodoxy has completely destroyed our ability to think rationally about the environment’ – Tol: ‘There is no prima facie reason to assume that any given past climate was better than the prospective one.’ UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol: ‘There are plenty of examples in history where everyone agreed and everyone was wrong’ Leading German Daily Paper: Climate ‘Apocalypse Will Not Take Place’…UN IPCC’s Dr. Richard Tol: ‘97% Consensus Does Not Exist’ – Germany’s print high-profile national daily the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) which features climate economist Richard Tol titled: ‘The apocalypse won’t take place’ – ‘Tol is one of the most productive and most respected researchers in his field. He is (co)author of more than 250 papers in renowned journals and according to the Ideas-Repec databank, among the top 100 scientists worldwide.’ UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol: ‘The claim of a 97% consensus on global warming does not stand up’

UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Mocks UN Climate Treaty Process As ‘Futile Effort’ Where Countries ‘Pretend To Reduce Emissions’

October 30, 2015

Washington DC – UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol slammed the upcoming Paris climate negotiation as a “futile effort.” President Obama is determined to sign a new agreement in December in Paris and commit the U.S. to the UN’s climate agenda of emission reductions. But UN Lead Author Tol was skeptical of the entire UN climate treaty process. Tol predicted that the UN climate summit will “ultimately proven to be a futile effort” and achieve nothing more than “sending people to Paris for no apparent reason other than to keep these people well-travelled.” Tol, an economist and statistician, is the Professor of the Economics of Climate Change at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam and he is ranked among the “top 50 most-cited climate scholars”. He has well over 200 publications in academic journals. “I don’t know what will happen in Paris, and I don’t quite know what all those 50,000 people will do,” he explained. “International negotiations on binding targets and timetables have failed since 1995,” Tol said at a CATO Institute climate forum in DC today. Tol continued: “The discussion is now about money. How much do rich countries need to pay poor countries to pretend to reduce emissions?” According to Tol: “Climate policy has been about rewarding allies with rents and subsides rather than emission reduction.” “Twenty five years of climate policy has made most a little bit poorer and some a whole lot richer and it has not reduced emissions much.” “International climate policy is shifting from a hopeless focus on binding emission targets to a more realistic pledge and review,” Tol added. Related Links: Skeptical Climate Scientists Fire Back at RICO 20 Colleagues: Demand Investigations Against Their Warmist Accusers UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Rips 97% consensus claim: ‘The 97% is essentially pulled from thin air, it is not based on any credible research whatsoever’ ‘It’s All Wrong’: UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol slams media for false claims about alleged 97% consensus ‘The Chinafication of America’: Reaction to Obama Bypassing the Senate with UN Climate Treaty: ‘Obama is taking a page from China’s government’ – New York Times: ‘U.S. seeking climate deal that would skirt Senate’: ‘Under the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate. To sidestep that requirement, President Obama’s climate negotiators are devising what they call a “politically binding” deal that would “name and shame” countries into cutting their emissions…American negotiators are instead homing in on a hybrid agreement — a proposal to blend legally binding conditions from an existing 1992 treaty with new voluntary pledges. The mix would create a deal that would update the treaty, and thus, negotiators say, not require a new vote of ratification.’ – Marc Morano: ‘Obama is taking a page from China’s government and is seeking to bypass democracy’s ‘very detrimental’ hurdles and just impose a new UN treaty on Americans’ NYT: John Kerry ‘hopes to use his position as secretary of state to achieve a legacy on global warming that has long eluded him’ Global warming causes polygamy?! Dr. Richard Tol mocks: ‘Men marry multiple wives to beat drought’ – ‘Cue claims that climate change will turn us all into bigamists’ UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Corrects Obama: The 97‰ ‘consensus’ is a ‘bogus number’ UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Debunks ‘97% Consensus’ Claim – Tol says. ‘[The IPCC’s] reputation of competence was shredded by the climate community’s celebration of the flawed works of Michael Mann’ ‘If you want to believe that climate researchers are incompetent, biased and secretive, Cook’s (97%) paper is an excellent case in point.’ The paper only claims that 97 percent of the scientific literature that takes a position on climate change (most does not) supports man-made global warming hypotheses. Yet supporters have used it to claim that 97 percent of scientists support global warming theories; they do not. “In fact, about three-quarters of the papers counted as endorsements had nothing to say about the subject matter,” Tol says. UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Mocks climate hype: ‘2015: the most crucial year for decades in the climate battle as were 1992, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2009′ UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Laments: ‘Politically correct climate change orthodoxy has completely destroyed our ability to think rationally about the environment’ – Tol: ‘There is no prima facie reason to assume that any given past climate was better than the prospective one.’ UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol: ‘There are plenty of examples in history where everyone agreed and everyone was wrong’ Leading German Daily Paper: Climate ‘Apocalypse Will Not Take Place’…UN IPCC’s Dr. Richard Tol: ‘97% Consensus Does Not Exist’ – Germany’s print high-profile national daily the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) which features climate economist Richard Tol titled: ‘The apocalypse won’t take place’ – ‘Tol is one of the most productive and most respected researchers in his field. He is (co)author of more than 250 papers in renowned journals and according to the Ideas-Repec databank, among the top 100 scientists worldwide.’ UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol: ‘The claim of a 97% consensus on global warming does not stand up’

‘It’s All Wrong’: UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol slams media for false claims about alleged 97% consensus

September 3, 2015

Climate Depot Exclusive Convening UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol, a Professor at the University of Sussex, has been in a back and forth battle with the global warming promoting website Politifact. Tol is demanding corrections to their articles claiming that GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s debunking of the alleged 97% consensus was “false.” Tol’s full email exchanges with the Politifact website are published in full with permission from Tol further down below. Climate Depot publisher Marc Morano sent the below email to Politifact explaining the error of their ways on the 97% consensus. # Morano’s full email to Politifact: From: Marc Morano Date: Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 3:54 PM Subject: You need to correct your Santorum ‘false’ claim on 97% consensus! To: [email protected] Hi Linda, I run the Climate Depot and will have a new theatrical climate documentary coming out this fall (Climate Hustle www.ClimateHustle.com) I watched Santorum on Bill Maher’s HBO show and then I read your ‘false’ review of his claims. 1) First off, Santorum accurately claimed that one of the studies claiming 97% did in fact rely on only 75 scientists! See: The 97% “Consensus” is only 75 Self-Selected Climatologists – http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/08/97-consensus-is-only-76-self-selected.html & http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf – The 97% consensus is 75 out of 77. In other words, according to this study, the 97% consensus was not even 97 scientists! Do your homework! Santorum correctly cited this study. 2) Second, Santorum accurately referred to UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol. Santorum said: “The 97 percent figure that’s thrown around, the head of the IPCC said that number was pulled out of thin air.” That is exactly what Dr. Tol told the U.S. Congress in testimony in 2014. See: UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Rips 97% consensus claim: ‘The 97% is essentially pulled from thin air, it is not based on any credible research whatsoever’ Tol’s research http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024 found that only 64 papers (out of about 12,000) supported the alleged “consensus.” Somehow the author John Cook makes 64 papers into a 97% ‘consensus’ out of 12,000. So Santorum was correct again, accurately cited Tol’s comment. (Yes, You can ding Santorum for mixing up Dr. Tol’s position as “the head of IPCC”. But Tol is a UN IPCC Lead Author.) 3) Thirdly, You take Santorum to task for citing the survey of 1800 international scientists. But Santorum accurately cited the study that many analysts agree counters the claimed 97% consensus. Yes, it is a controversial analysis. But controversy and only presenting one side of the debate — as you did in your Politifact analysis, does not make Santorum’s claim ‘false’ as you state. Santorum said: “The most recent survey of climate scientists said about 57 percent don’t agree with the idea that 95 percent of the change in the climate is caused by CO2.” Ok, Santorum had a brain typo by flipping the 95% number to mean 95% of warming is caused CO2, when in reality he should have said that only 43% of scientists surveyed had a 95% certainty that more than half of warming is caused by CO2. That is easy and mistake to make in live debate and you can correctly ding him for that. But that does not make his overall claim “false.” But Santorum also said: “There was a survey done of 1,800 scientists, and 57 percent said they don’t buy off on the idea that CO2 is the knob that’s turning the climate. There’s hundreds of reasons the climate’s changed.” That statement is an accurate reflection of the analysis of the study by several prominent analysts, using the IPCC’s own standards. See: Survey of 1800 scientists: The ‘97% consensus’ is now 43% – ‘Less than half of climate scientists agree with UN IPCC ‘95%’ certainty’ To claim that Santorum was “false” is a gross misrepresentation. Even MSNBC got it correct on Santorum claims — while Politifact failed. Via MSNBC: “Maher appeared to point toward the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, stating with 95% certainty that humans were the main cause of the current global warming. Santorum, meanwhile, cited a survey of 1,800 scientists that found 57% believed other factors were more important than man-made CO2.” Many prominent scientists agree with Santorum that there are hundreds of factors that influence temperature, not just CO2. See: UK Professor Emeritus of Biogeography Philip Stott of the University of London: “As I have said, over and over again, the fundamental point has always been this: climate change is governed by hundreds of factors, or variables, and the very idea that we can manage climate change predictably by understanding and manipulating at the margins one politically-selected factor (CO2), is as misguided as it gets,” Stott wrote. Even the climate activists at RealClimate.org let this point slip out in a September 20, 2008 article. “The actual temperature rise is an emergent property resulting from interactions among hundreds of factors,”RealClimate.org conceded. You owe your readers a better representation of the climate debate. Thanks Marc Morano Publisher Climate Depot # End Morano’s email # Dr. Richard Tol’s full email exchanges with the Politifact website are published below. Read from bottom of article to top for best clarity. —–Original Message—– From: Richard Tol To: ‘Linda Qiu’ <[email protected]>; Aaron Sharockman <[email protected]> Cc: truthometer <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, Sep 3, 2015 11:01 am Subject: RE: Media request from US newspaper on 97 percent climate change figure Dear Ms Qiu, >”Parted ways with the IPCC” refers to you withdrawing from the team writing the summary. It’s incorrect. As you can see in the published version of the Fifth Assessment Report, I did not part ways. As you can see from the media reports, I attended the final meeting, leaving some 10 hours after it was supposed to end but 26 hours before it actually ended. Do you define “parting ways” as “catching a plane to be back home in time to teach”? Given the topic of the article, I think your affiliation with that particular organization is relevant. I am not affiliated with the GWPF. Given the topic of the article, it is just as relevant that I am an adviser to the Environmental Protection Agency etc etc etc. The 91 percent endorsement rate is a direct quote from your paper. “The headline endorsement rate would be 91% in that case.” (Cook cites it multiple times in his reply to your paper.) Do check the grammar: “would […] in that case” does in no way indicate my agreement with the number. In fact, I make it very clear that any number based on Cook’s data is unreliable. Sincerely Richard Tol On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 8:32 AM, Aaron Sharockman <[email protected]> wrote: Richard, Feel free to submit any evidence of an error. You saying there’s a mistake is not evidence there is one. On Thursday, September 3, 2015, Richard Tol wrote: Dear Ms Qiu, I see you have yet to correct your articles. Please explain why this takes you so long. From: Richard Tol Sent: 02 September 2015 10:29 PM To: Linda Qiu Cc: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: Media request from US newspaper on 97 percent climate change figure Hi Linda, I see your second post is now up. It is all wrong. I was not a lead author. I was a convening lead author. I did not part ways with the IPCC. I serve as an adviser to many organizations. Why single out one? [Climate Depot Note: Tol is referring to the UK’s Global Warming Policy Foundation] Cook did not study 1,300 papers, but close to 12,000; not that Cook has been unable to give the exact number. (http://richardtol.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/ppps-cooks-missing-papers.html) Cook’s 97% is the consensus rate, rather than the percentage. The percentage is 0.6%. I never claimed that the consensus rate is 91%. I see that you have yet to correct yesterday’s post on the same topic. Please correct these errors post haste. Dr. Richard S.J. Tol MEA Professor; PhD Convenor; Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange Department of Economics, Room 281, Jubilee Building University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9SL, UKProfessor of the Economics of Climate Change Institute for Environmental Studies & Department of Spatial Economics Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The NetherlandsResearch Fellow Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam, The NetherlandsResearch Network Fellow CESifo, Munich, GermanyCo-editor Energy Economicshttp://www.ae-info.org/ae/User/Tol_Richard From: Linda Qiu [[email protected]] Sent: 02 September 2015 7:27 PM To: Richard Tol Subject: Re: Media request from US newspaper on 97 percent climate change figure I think Verheggen would argue that because of the way the questions were phrased, respondents who didn’t answer the question directly didn’t want to commit to a level of specificity. From his blog post on the topic: “Calculating the level of agreement in the way we suggest, i.e. excluding undetermined responses, provides a more robust measure as it’s relatively independent of the perceived difficulty of having to choose between specific answer options. And, as is omitted by the various critics, it is consistent with the responses to the qualitative attribution question, which also provides a clear indication of a strong consensus.” Also, my editor forwarded me your note to our comments email about the piece we’re discussing. I’m confused because I asked you about a different Santorum claim a day ago? (I’m still writing that article.) What were you referring to when you said Santorum’s claim was correct? On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 2:03 PM, Richard Tol wrote: Dear Linda, Correct. Cook’s analysis is a load of old bollocks. That does not take away the fact that the vast majority of experts argue that humans have affected climate in the recent past. On yesterday’s piece, I think you were unfair on Santorum. He mixes up his numbers here: “The most recent survey of climate scientists said about 57 percent don’t agree with the idea that 95 percent of the change in the climate is caused by CO2.” In fact, the statement is that 57% disagree that there is 95% confidence that 50% was caused by greenhouse gases. In other words, Santorum had the spirit right but the letter wrong. Verheggen’s comment on Kummer is silly: His survey only included recognized experts, so he cannot throw away the “don’t knows”. Doran’s remarks are silly too. The broad geosciences community is much more wary of anthropogenic climate change than the narrow climate community. Best Richard From: Linda Qiu [[email protected]] Sent: 02 September 2015 6:50 PM To: Richard Tol Subject: Re: Media request from US newspaper on 97 percent climate change figure Thanks for replying so quickly Professor Tol. I read your re-analysis Cook’s survey. Based on that and your congressional testimony, I have a line in my piece that says you don’t refute the idea that there is consensus on man-made climate change, you just did Cook’s methodology flawed. Is that accurate? Also if you have some time to spare, I’d love to hear your thoughts on a piece I wrote yesterday on a similar topic, specifically responding this analysis of another consensus study. This topic overall seems to be very contentious and I want to make sure I’m being fair. Really appreciate it! Sent from my iPhone On Sep 1, 2015, at 4:50 PM, Richard Tol wrote: Hi Linda, No, that number is not from me. There are a number of consensus studies. I am mostly involved with Cook’s http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024 Cook found 64 papers (out of some 12,000) that support the consensus. It is a long story why Cook thinks that 64 is 97% of 12,000. Santorum refers to Doran’s study http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf The 97% consensus is 75 out of 77. Best Richard Dr. Richard S.J. Tol MEA Professor; PhD Convenor; Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange Department of Economics, Room 281, Jubilee Building University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9SL, UK From: Linda Qiu [[email protected]] Sent: 01 September 2015 9:30 PM To: Richard Tol Subject: Media request from US newspaper on 97 percent climate change figure Hi Professor Tol, I’m a reporter with PolitiFact, the fact-checking website of the Tampa Bay Times. I’m sorry to bother you but I’m working on a story about the 97 percent climate change consensus figure and hoping you can help me out. Specifically, presidential candidate Rick Santorum said in an interview a few days ago that “The 97 percent figure that’s thrown around, the head of the IPCC said that number was pulled out of thin air. It was based on a survey of 77 scientists.” I haven’t heard back from his campaign but I think he’s referring to you, since you are perhaps the most prominent critic of the figure who collaborated on the IPCC reports (please correct me if you don’t think this is the case). So I’m curious about your take on his claim. Does he accurately describe what you believe/said? My deadline is 10 am UTC -5:00 tomorrow (I think about 3 pm in Sussex) but do let me know if that doesn’t work for you. Any help you can give would be much appreciated. Thanks so much. — Sincerely, Linda Qiu PolitiFact [email protected] — Sincerely, Linda Qiu PolitiFact [email protected] From: Richard Tol Sent: 02 September 2015 7:03 PM To: Linda Qiu Subject: RE: Media request from US newspaper on 97 percent climate change figure Dear Linda, Correct. Cook’s analysis is a load of old bollocks. That does not take away the fact that the vast majority of experts argue that humans have affected climate in the recent past. On yesterday’s piece, I think you were unfair on Santorum. He mixes up his numbers here: “The most recent survey of climate scientists said about 57 percent don’t agree with the idea that 95 percent of the change in the climate is caused by CO2.” In fact, the statement is that 57% disagree that there is 95% confidence that 50% was caused by greenhouse gases. In other words, Santorum had the spirit right but the letter wrong. Verheggen’s comment on Kummer is silly: His survey only included recognized experts, so he cannot throw away the “don’t knows”. Doran’s remarks are silly too. The broad geosciences community is much more wary of anthropogenic climate change than the narrow climate community. Best Richard From: Linda Qiu Sent: 02 September 2015 6:50 PM To: Richard Tol Subject: Re: Media request from US newspaper on 97 percent climate change figure Thanks for replying so quickly Professor Tol. I read your re-analysis Cook’s survey. Based on that and your congressional testimony, I have a line in my piece that says you don’t refute the idea that there is consensus on man-made climate change, you just did Cook’s methodology flawed. Is that accurate? Also if you have some time to spare, I’d love to hear your thoughts on a piece I wrote yesterday on a similar topic, specifically responding this analysis of another consensus study. This topic overall seems to be very contentious and I want to make sure I’m being fair. Really appreciate it! Sent from my iPhone On Sep 1, 2015, at 4:50 PM, Richard Tol wrote: Hi Linda, No, that number is not from me. There are a number of consensus studies. I am mostly involved with Cook’s http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024 Cook found 64 papers (out of some 12,000) that support the consensus. It is a long story why Cook thinks that 64 is 97% of 12,000. Santorum refers to Doran’s study http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf The 97% consensus is 75 out of 77. Best Richard Dr. Richard S.J. Tol MEA Professor; PhD Convenor; Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange Department of Economics, Room 281, Jubilee Building University of Sussex, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9SL, UKProfessor of the Economics of Climate Change Institute for Environmental Studies & Department of Spatial Economics Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The NetherlandsResearch Fellow Tinbergen Institute, Amsterdam, The NetherlandsResearch Network Fellow CESifo, Munich, GermanyCo-editor Energy Economicshttp://www.ae-info.org/ae/User/Tol_Richard From: Linda Qiu Sent: 01 September 2015 9:30 PM To: Richard Tol Subject: Media request from US newspaper on 97 percent climate change figure Hi Professor Tol, I’m a reporter with PolitiFact, the fact-checking website of the Tampa Bay Times. I’m sorry to bother you but I’m working on a story about the 97 percent climate change consensus figure and hoping you can help me out. Specifically, presidential candidate Rick Santorum said in an interview a few days ago that “The 97 percent figure that’s thrown around, the head of the IPCC said that number was pulled out of thin air. It was based on a survey of 77 scientists.” I haven’t heard back from his campaign but I think he’s referring to you, since you are perhaps the most prominent critic of the figure who collaborated on the IPCC reports (please correct me if you don’t think this is the case). So I’m curious about your take on his claim. Does he accurately describe what you believe/said? My deadline is 10 am UTC -5:00 tomorrow (I think about 3 pm in Sussex) but do let me know if that doesn’t work for you. Any help you can give would be much appreciated. Thanks so much. — Sincerely, Linda Qiu PolitiFact # Related Links: CONSENSUS BUSTED: Fmr. UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol takes on Cook’s ’97% consensus’ claim – showing the claim is ‘unfounded’ – ‘A veritable statistical train wreck rife with bias, classification errors, poor data quality, and inconsistency’ – ‘A new paper by Dr. Richard Tol published today in ScienceDirect, journal of Energy Policy, shows that the Cook et al. paper claiming that there is a 97% consensus among scientists is not just impossible to reproduce (since Cook is withholding data) but a veritable statistical train wreck rife with bias, classification errors, poor data quality, and inconsistency in the ratings process.’ CONSENSUS? WHAT 97% CONSENSUS? — ‘The consensus revealed by the paper by Cook et al. is so broad that it incorporates the views of most prominent climate skeptics’ -‘The consensus as described by the survey is virtually meaningless and tells us nothing about the current state of scientific opinion beyond the trivial observation that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that human activities have warmed the planet to some unspecified extent,’ Andrew Montford says. ‘The survey methodology therefore fails to address the key points that are in dispute in the global warming debate,’ Montford adds. Monckton on Cook’s study: ‘0.3% CONSENSUS, NOT 97.1%’ – ‘Quantifying the consensus on global warming in the literature’ – Monckton: ‘The latest paper apparently showing 97% endorsement of a consensus that more than half of recent global warming was anthropogenic really shows only 0.3% endorsement of that now-dwindling consensus.’ — ‘Only 41 papers – 0.3% of all 11,944 abstracts or 1.0% of the 4014 expressing an opinion, and not 97.1% – had been found to endorse the quantitative hypothesis, stated in the introduction to Cook et al. and akin to similar definitions in the literature, that ‘human activity is very likely causing most of the current GW (anthropogenic global warming, or AGW).’

Global warming causes polygamy?! Dr. Richard Tol mocks: ‘Men marry multiple wives to beat drought’ – ‘Cue claims that climate change will turn us all into bigamists’

July 17, 2015

UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Corrects Obama: The 97‰ ‘consensus’ is a ‘bogus number’

May 28, 2015

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/05/28/climate-change-and-truth-mr-obama-97-percent-experts-do-not-agree-with.html The paper is a treasure trove of how-not-to lessons for a graduate class on survey design and analysis: the sample was not representative, statistical tests were ignored, and the results were misinterpreted.

UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Debunks ‘97% Consensus’ Claim

March 28, 2015

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/03/25/institute-of-physics-accused-of-corruption-as-climate-change-97-percent-consensus-claim-is-debunked/

UN IPCC Lead Author Dr. Richard Tol Mocks climate hype: ‘2015: the most crucial year for decades in the climate battle as were 1992, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2009’

January 3, 2015

2015: the most crucial year for decades in the climate battle http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/11322438/2015-the-most-crucial-year-for-decades-in-the-climate-battle.html as were 1992, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2009 2015: the most crucial year for decades in the climate battle http://t.co/yLy3zIxQrO as were 1992, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2009 — Prof Dr Richard S.J. Tol MAE (@RichardTol) January 3, 2015

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