R.K. Pachauri discloses the IPCC's secret weapon against errors - "a formal protocol for any errors that have to be corrected"

R.K. Pachauri reveals the IPCC's secret weapon against errors: "a formal protocol for any errors that have to be corrected"!

What lessons were learnt from the controversies over the previous report, such as the overconfident predictions on the melting of the Himalayan glaciers? The fact is that this is a human undertaking, which involves literally thousands of scientists and, therefore, we need to be prepared for the possibility of some errors.

However, to eliminate errors, we have certainly made sure that all the authors are clearly cautioned about being very careful in assessing any literature, making sure that whatever they include in the report is robust and defendable.

So we are taking extra steps, but we still do realise that, in any human undertaking such as this, errors can occur. And, therefore, to deal with them, we now have a formal protocol for any errors that have to be corrected.

So rest assured, even if "errors can occur" in "any human undertaking", the IPCC's magic protocol is there to fix it! Hopefully railway engineer Pachauri will soon give us some examples of how the protocol has been applied.