Climate scientists urged to cover up slow in global warming, it is claimed
The authors of the report, which is seen as the gospel of climate science and is cited to justify fuel taxes and subsidies for renewable energy, are struggling to explain why global warming appears to have slowed down despite rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The leaked documents, obtained by The Associated Press, show political leaders in Belgium, Germany, Hungary and the US have deep concerns over how to address the issue ahead of next week's meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Climate sceptics have used the lull in surface warming since 1998 to cast doubt on the scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming by burning fossil fuels and cutting down CO2-absorbing forests. ...

Row over IPCC report as nations 'try to hide lack of climate change’
...Belgium meanwhile objected to using 1998 as a starting year for any statistics because it claimed it was a particularly warm year.

The row will fuel claims by global warming sceptics that the issue has become too political and that governments are now spending vast sums of money on policies to combat a phenomenon that may not exist and may not be man-made. The effect of those policies, claim sceptics, is to increase global poverty because the policies are expensive to implement.

The draft report states: “It is extremely likely that human activities have caused more than half of the observed increase in global average surface temperature since the 1950s.”

It goes on to claim with “high confidence” that the likely increase in surface temperature will “eventually lead to a nearly ice-free Arctic Ocean in late summer”.

The IPCC report will be scrutinised for errors and exaggerations when it is finally released.

The previous report in 2007 - for which the IPCC was controversially awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with former US vice president Al Gore - came in for serious criticism after a number of flaws were uncovered in its analysis, most notably over claims that the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035.

The final version will come under serious criticism if it is shown political interference led to changes since the draft versions which have been circulating. ...