“What do you get when you mix science and politics? Pure politics” – John Barry.

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Dear Climate Healers Family,

What is the UN IPCC?

The United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an organization of governments that are members of the UN or the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Created in 1988 by the WMO and the UN Environmental Program (UNEP), the purpose of the UN IPCC is to provide governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies.

Thousands of scientists contribute to the work of the UN IPCC and it has a transparent and open process by which the work of the scientists is reviewed by experts and governments around the world. Therefore, the politicization of the UN IPCC’s reports is quite blatant as there is recorded evidence of political operatives significantly altering language, meaning and conventions in the content of the scientific reports.

The Three Axioms

With regard to emissions accounting, there are three axioms:

1) CO2 is CO2. CO2 is a well-mixed gas in the atmosphere and a CO2 molecule behaves the same way no matter what its emission source.

2) Photosynthesis occurs through the grace of Nature. It is arrogant and even incorrect from an engineering perspective for humans to take credit for photosynthesis and use it to offset certain kinds of emissions, if we are serious about addressing the nature and climate crisis.

3) Emissions accounting should include ALL emissions. We cannot draw conclusions from considering just a few emissions species, while ignoring several other equally relevant emissions species.

The UN IPCC violates all of these axioms in its emissions accounting.

Fig 1. The UN IPCC’s GWP100 sector accounting utilizes just 4 emissions species: CO2, methane, N2O and Halocarbons.

Four Ways to Politicize Emissions Accounting

There are four main ways in which the UN IPCC is politicizing the accounting on greenhouse gas emissions to make it seem like fossil fuel burning is the leading cause of climate change:

1. The UN IPCC undercounts deforestation emissions by a factor of 3. The UN IPCC undercounts deforestation and land use change CO2 emissions by using net accounting for land use change emissions and gross accounting for fossil fuel emissions even though CO2 is a well-mixed gas in the atmosphere and a CO2 molecule emitted from deforestation behaves exactly the same as a CO2 molecule emitted from fossil fuel combustion. This violates Axiom #1.

With net accounting, emissions from deforestation in one area is offset by regrowth on managed or abandoned land in another area. While using net accounting, the UN IPCC is allowing humans to take credit for photosynthesis, which violates Axiom #2. It also assumes that the CO2 sequestered on managed or abandoned land excludes CO2 sourced from fossil fuel combustion, which is patently false.

When we use consistent  gross accounting for deforestation and land use change CO2 emissions, the annual value increases from 1.6 GtC to 3.4 GtC and the cumulative emissions from 1750 to 2020 increases from 200 GtC to 553 GtC, by nearly a factor of 3. In contrast, fossil fuel combustion has caused 464 GtC of cumulative emissions from 1750 to 2020.

When the UN IPCC undercounts deforestation and land use change emissions by a factor of 3, it underestimates the impact of animal agriculture and overestimates the impact of fossil fuel combustion.

2. The UN IPCC undervalues methane emissions by a factor of 3. The UN IPCC uses a 100 year averaging of the impact of methane on global warming in its sector accounting even though climate change is imminent and we don’t have the luxury of waiting 100 years to solve the nature and climate crisis. Methane has a half-life of less than 10 years in the atmosphere as it reacts with hydroxyl radicals in the atmosphere to become CO2.

The 100 year Global Warming Potential (GWP100) of methane is 28, implying that every Gt of methane traps as much heat as 28 Gt of CO2 in the atmosphere when we consider its impact over 100 years.

The UN IPCC has also assessed that methane has caused 1.2 W/m2 of anthropogenic global warming Effective Radiative Forcing (ERF) on the planet while CO2 has caused 2.06 W/m2, measured cumulatively from 1750 to 2020. Using consistent accounting of land use change CO2 emissions, we can calculate that each Giga ton of CO2 has caused 2.06/4216 = 0.000489 W/m2 of ERF, while each Giga ton of methane has caused 1.2/26.4 = 0.0455 W/m2 of ERF or the GWP-ERF of methane is 0.0455/0.000489 = 93, more than 3 times the GWP100 value of 28 used by the UN IPCC in its sector accounting.

When two sets of data issued by the UN IPCC are inconsistent, it is the set based on its arbitrary choice of 100 years for averaging the impact of methane that needs to be discarded and ignored. Hence, by using the GWP100 metric for their sector emissions comparisons, the UN IPCC has been undervaluing the impact of methane emissions by a factor of 93/28 = 3.32.

When the UN IPCC undervalues methane emissions by a factor of 3, it undervalues the impact of animal agriculture and overvalues the impact of fossil fuel combustion.

3. The UN IPCC ignores cooling effects. The UN IPCC ignores the cooling effects that occur mainly due to fossil fuel combustion in its sector emissions accounting. The cooling gases co-emitted with fossil fuel combustion result in 1.3 W/m2 of cooling ERF from fossil fuel sources alone. These cooling gases, SO2, NOx and Organic C, are very short-lived with a half-life of a few weeks at most. Therefore, if humanity rapidly phases down fossil fuel use without addressing animal husbandry as most prominent climate spokespeople are recommending, this would be the exact opposite of what we need to do to address climate change since it would cause anthropogenic global warming ERF to rapidly increase from 2.6 W/m2 to 3.9 W/m2, a 50% increase in a matter of a few weeks.

When the UN IPCC ignores cooling effects, it violates Axiom #3 and validates government policies that are suicidal for all life on earth.

4. The UN IPCC ignores the Carbon Opportunity Cost (COC) of the land used for animal husbandry. The UN IPCC ignores the vast majority of anthropogenic CO2 emissions associated primarily with animal husbandry activities by claiming that they are part of the “natural” cycle. In the Sixth Assessment Report of the UN IPCC (AR6), animal respiration, pasture maintenance fires, bottom trawling of the ocean and other such “natural” activities were shown to be responsible for  48.6 GtC of emissions, more than five times as much as the 9.4 GtC emitted through fossil fuel combustion.

This presumes that the artificial impregnation of billions of farmed animals is a natural process for which humans bear no responsibility.

This presumes that bottom trawling of the ocean with 100 mile long nets is a natural process for which humans bear no responsibility.

This presumes that chopping down and burning vegetation that the farmed animals did not eat in order to maintain grazing lands and prevent forests from regenerating is a natural process for which humans bear no responsibility.

On the other hand, if we humans accept responsibility for bringing all these farmed animals into this world, then we humans also have to take responsibility for all the CO2 emissions of our animal husbandry activity.

The main rationale for not counting emissions from animal respiration and pasture maintenance fires is that they were accounted for when the land was deforested. However, when the land is repeatedly attempting to regenerate year after year and the farmed animals consume that vegetation or it gets burnt up for pasture maintenance, the overall CO2 emissions from that land would far exceed the original carbon stored on that land.

The UN IPCC also ignores historic deforestation and land use change CO2 emissions for the 10,000 years of agriculture in the pre-industrial era prior to 1750 on the grounds that climate change did not happen prior to 1750.

This is like claiming that the hamburgers we have been eating for 50 years had nothing to do with the heart disease we have contracted because we only felt chest pains after we also started drinking milkshakes two years ago.

This also violates Axiom #2, specifically as humans would be taking credit for growing peat moss in the Arctic to compensate for our deforestation emissions. Therefore, whether climate change happened or not, CO2 emissions is CO2 emissions (Axiom #1) and must be counted.

Since the “natural” CO2 emissions and historic CO2 emissions were primarily caused by animal husbandry, this once again shows that the UN IPCC has been politicizing emissions accounting in order to reduce the impact of that sector.

One way to account for all these emissions is to include the Carbon Opportunity Cost (COC) of the land used for animal husbandry which is the cost we incur for choosing to continue this unnecessary activity, when we could alternately be regenerating ecosystems and storing carbon on that same land.

Fig 2. Complete ERF accounting utilizing all 11 emissions species (from Wedderburn-Bisshop [2025]).

The UN IPCC is Validating Suicidal Government Policies

This is the Cow in the Room at the UN IPCC, which is using inconsistent and biased accounting conventions to artificially suppress the impact of animal husbandry and amplify the impact of fossil fuel combustion in order to promote a “green growth” story for renewable energy.

Mainstream climate spokespeople are now promoting this “green growth” story and recommending the rapid phaseout of fossil fuels. This is dangerous because the world can expect a 50% increase in global warming ERF in the short term if such rapid phaseout recommendations are actually implemented without addressing the Cow in the Room as most government policies are currently configured. This is suicidal.

If and when Hansen et al.’s calculation that the cooling impact of SO2 has been underestimated by 1 W/m2 in IPCC AR6 is validated, then the cooling gases co-emitted with fossil fuel combustion would result in 2.3 W/m2 of cooling ERF from fossil fuel sources alone. Then, phasing down fossil fuel use rapidly would cause anthropogenic global warming ERF to rapidly increase from 2.6 W/m2 to 4.9 W/m2, an 87% increase in a matter of a few weeks.

Remarkably, with Hansen et al.’s update, the heating effects of fossil fuels and industry are almost exactly cancelled out by their cooling effects so that these two sectors have collectively caused just 2% of the global warming ERF from 1750 to 2020.

Fig 3. Complete ERF accounting utilizing all 11 emissions species and using 4.5ºC Charney sensitivity per Hansen et al. [2025].

Even a 50% increase in global warming ERF, let alone an 87% increase, would result in the global surface temperature of the Earth crossing the 2.0 deg C threshold within a few years. According to Hansen et al., due to the inertia of the ocean, one-third of the impact of this climate forcing will be felt within 5 years, the next one-third over the next 100 years and the final one-third over millennia.

The Six Climate Tipping Points at 1.5ºC

There are at least six climate tipping points, defined to be conditions beyond which changes to a part of the climate system become self-perpetuating, that are likely to be fully triggered as the global surface temperature increases beyond the 1.5 deg C threshold:

1. Boreal Permafrost Abrupt Thaw: Permanently frozen soils in the northern boreal regions lock in over a trillion tons of carbon that can be released as CO2 and methane upon thawing. The mean estimate for the global surface temperature increase that can lead to an abrupt thaw of the boreal permafrost is 1.5ºC.

2. Low Latitude Coral Reefs Die-off: When water temperatures exceed a certain threshold, tropical and sub-tropical coral reefs expel their algae and bleach resulting in the death of one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on our planet. The mean estimate for the global surface temperature increase that can lead to widespread bleaching of low latitude coral reefs is 1.5ºC.

3. Labrador Sea Sub-polar Gyre Collapse: Ocean current circulation in the North Atlantic abruptly collapses in some models at a global surface temperature increase of above 1.8ºC. This could result in a potential 2-3ºC decrease in average temperatures in the North Atlantic nations of the world.

4. West Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse: The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) is perched on land but large parts of it are submerged under the warming ocean. It is estimated that many glaciers within WAIS will experience a form of self-sustaining retreat at global surface temperature increases above 1.5ºC.

5. Barents Sea Winter Ice Collapse: The Barents Sea Ice in the Arctic has been shown to collapse even during winter in models at global surface temperature increases above 1.5ºC. These models also project occasional Septembers with no Arctic Summer ice at similar temperature increases.

6. Greenland Ice Sheet Collapse: Models as well as paleoclimate data show that the Greenland ice sheet could reach a tipping point and melt rapidly due to a positive feedback loop that forms as the height of the ice sheet decreases, the surface ice encounters warmer air and melts faster. This feedback loop is triggered in models at global surface temperature increases above 1.5ºC.

All these six climate tipping points are poised to trigger at global surface temperature increases of 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels and therefore, it makes no sense to pursue a rapid phaseout of fossil fuel use instead of what any competent systems engineering team would recommend, a rapid phaseout of animal husbandry and a more nuanced phaseout of fossil fuel use.

Fig 4. Climate tipping events and the range of temperature increases over which they are expected to trigger (from Armstrong McKay et al. [2022]).

As even the UN IPCC would agree if it hadn’t been censored by governments, there is nothing that does not improve when we shut down the unnecessary practice of animal husbandry.

Open Letter to the UN IPCC

Another problem with the UN IPCC politicizing greenhouse gas emissions accounting is that it makes not only all government policies, but also derivative calculations as well as the research work done by universities and NGOs based on this accounting largely incorrect. Ecological overshoot day calculations and carbon footprint and carbon market pricing calculators that use the UN IPCC data are also largely incorrect.

A number of us have now signed an open letter to the chairman of the UN IPCC, Dr. Jim Skea, calling on him to correct these errors and thereby reclaim the scientific integrity of the UN IPCC from political interference. This would help preserve the reputation of the thousands of hard working climate scientists who contribute to the UN IPCC and other researchers who depend on its data.

With much love,