PM's man hits out at climate sceptics

Professor Sir Peter Gluckman has released a position paper on climate change. Photo / Dean Purcell

The Prime Minister's top science adviser has drawn a comparison between climate change sceptics and those in the 1980s who disputed that Aids was caused by the HIV virus.

Professor Sir Peter Gluckman, in one of his first acts as Chief Science Adviser, has released a position paper on climate change stating that the vast majority of the world's climate scientists believe the current warming trend is of human origin. The paper is on his website www.pmcsa.org.nz.

In general, it says, there is high level of agreement on the trends and on expected future directions of change.

"Nevertheless there are some scientists, although few of these are active climate researchers, who dispute the generally held conclusions."

There are genuine uncertainties in the details of global warming, and the complexities involving many science disciplines create difficulties in reaching conclusions, the paper says.

"A similar debate occurred about Aids, where a minority of scientists maintained for a long time that the disease was not caused by a virus.

"This view was manifestly wrong in the eyes of most scientists," it says, "but nevertheless some distinguished scientists, albeit usually not experts in virology, took different views until the science became irrefutable. The political consequences of this denialism had tragic results in some African countries."

Sir Peter, renowned in the medical world for his research on early childhood health and development, has spent the past month schooling up on climate change. His paper says there is a remote possibility that if nothing is done the temperature will not rise to unacceptable levels.

"But we cannot gamble the future of the whole planet on the low probability of that occurring.

"We do many things in life that are based on the balance of probabilities ... It is the same with climate change - the collective wisdom of the scientific community is that action is needed to address global warming because without action the potential risk to the planet and ourselves is too high."

The post of Chief Science Adviser was created by John Key to give him expert advice and improve public understanding of scientific issues.