Extracts from Ofcom Complaint, by Category: Misrepresentation of People’s Views

Paul Reiter’s Resignation Allegations

[Comment 115: It is not true that Dr Reiter resigned from the IPCC.

Professor Martin Parry, co-chair of Working Group II for the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (2007), has reported (see: http://tinyurl.com/2hr3na, PDF) that Reiter was not selected as an author, so could not resign from its writing group. He was invited to act as a reviewer, and he did so, contributing many comments on the first and second order drafts of the Health Chapter. Parry also states that he has “not received any request from him to have his named removed from the list of reviewers of the Fourth Assessment.”

Professor James McCarthy, co-chair of Working Group II for the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (2001) has reported (see: http://tinyurl.com/2ax9p4, PDF) that:

Nothing like what Reiter describes with regard to having ‘resigned’, asking that his name be removed from the chapter author list, or threatening legal action ever happened [during the Second or Third Assessment] at WG II. Moreover, Reiter’s remark ‘this happened a great deal … specialists … don’t agree and resign … there have been a number that I know of …’ is completely without basis in fact. Neither [the heads of the SAR and TAR Technical Support Units] nor I can recall a single instance … of even one author having ‘resigned’.

McCarthy adds in his email (http://tinyurl.com/2ax9p4) that “Reiter seems to have exaggerated his claim of having been the equivalent of an author.” At one point in the review process, Reiter’s name appears as a contributing author, but he was never on the Working Group II author list, and a search of the archives reveals no indication that he ever contributed any text to the report.

The above statement by Reiter therefore appears to have been an attempt to mislead the audience by misrepresenting the facts, presumably in order to discredit the IPCC in the eyes of the viewers. It also appears to have greatly exaggerated Reiter’s links with the IPCC.

Moreover, the fact that the IPCC was not given a chance to respond to the very serious allegations made against it by Reiter in the Channel 4 programme is a clear breach of Section 7 of the Ofcom Code.]

(In breach of the 2003 Communications Act Section 265, Ofcom 5.7, 7.9, 7.10, 7.11)