US government climate report accused of distorting scientific studies

Leading scientists told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Thursday, July 31, that their research, cited in a landmark report from the U.S. Department of Energy, had been misused to minimize the role of human activity in climate change.

The report, released July 29, lays out the arguments that led the Trump administration to reverse a key 2009 decision on regulating greenhouse gas emissions on Tuesday, further undermining the fight against climate change in the United States. It was written by a working group that included John Christy and Judith Curry, both formerly associated with the Heartland Institute, a lobbying group that frequently challenges the scientific consensus on climate change.

The document "completely distorts my work," Benjamin Santer, a climate scientist and honorary professor at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, told AFP. He said a section of the report on "stratosphere cooling" contradicted his findings. AFP and other media outlets, including the US news website Notus , found inaccurate quotes, faulty analyses, and editorial errors in the report.

This is the third time this year that scientists have told AFP that a US government agency has distorted academic research to support its policies. In May, the White House notably rushed to amend a report on diseases affecting young Americans that was initially based on nonexistent scientific studies.

"I am concerned that a government agency has published a report intended to inform the public and guide policy without undergoing a rigorous peer-review process, while misinterpreting many studies that have been," Bor-Ting Jong, an assistant professor at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, told AFP. She pointed out that the document contained false claims about the climate model her team studied and used different terminology that led to misinterpretation of its results.

James Rae, a climate researcher at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, who also criticised the US Department of Energy's report for misrepresenting his work, told AFP that the shift in the administration's use of science was "truly chilling" ; it "has been at the forefront of scientific research for decades. Yet [its] report reads like an undergraduate exercise in distorting climate science," he added.

Contacted by AFP, a spokesperson for the department said the document in question had been reviewed internally by a group of scientists and public policy experts. The public will now have the opportunity to comment on its contents before its final publication in the Federal Register.