"Investigation Must be Truly Independent of the UN and IPCC"

Senate Republicans Request UN Investigation into Climategate

By EPW Blog
Thursday, December 10, 2009

Washington, D.C.-Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, along with 26 Republicans today sent a letter to United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon requesting an independent investigation into the controversial e-mails released from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

Full Text of Letter Follows

December 10, 2009

Ban Ki-Moon
Secretary-General
United Nations
405 East 42nd Street
New York, NY 10017

Dear Secretary-General:

Last week, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), announced that the UN would investigate emails released from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU). These emails reveal that several of the IPCC’s top scientists may have engaged in efforts to, among other things, manipulate data, defame scientists with opposing viewpoints, and evade transparency laws.

The scientists involved in this controversy are responsible for compiling historical temperature data used by the IPCC and governments throughout the world. Their work is an essential component of global climate model projections and in demonstrating temperature trends over several centuries. According to its website, the CRU staff “have been heavily involvedâ€