The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose reports have motivated governmental action to cut carbon emissions, relied on an uncredentialed student named Sari Kovats for writing and supervising its supposedly authoritative reports.  Donna Laframboise of NOconsensus.org brings us the shocking news.

In 1994, Kovats was one of only 21 people in the entire world selected to work on the first IPCC chapter that examined how climate change might affect human health. She was 25 years old. Her first academic paper wouldn't be published for another three years. It would be six years before she'd even begin her doctoral studies and 16 years before she'd graduate.

IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri says this about how IPCC authors are selected:

There is a very careful process of selection...These are people who have been chosen on the basis of their track record, on their record of publications, on the research that they have done...They are people who are at the top of their profession as far as research is concerned in a particular aspect of climate change...you can't think of a better set of qualified people than what we have in the IPCC.  [bold added]

Academically speaking, Kovats was invisible back in 1994. That anyone connected to the IPCC could have considered her a scientific expert is astonishing.

I'm sorry to say that that was just the beginning. When it came time to write the next version of the climate bible, Kovats received a promotion. She was selected to be a lead author, again for the health chapter - despite the fact that her doctoral studies wouldn't begin until the year the IPCC report was published.

What do we suppose happened with the next edition of the climate bible - the one that appeared in 2007, still three full years before Kovats earned her doctorate? Was she selected once again to be a health chapter lead author? You betcha.

But by then the IPCC, in its wisdom, had decided she was a scientific expert in other areas, as well. Kovats served as a contributing author for three additional chapters in Working Group 2: 

• Chapter 1 - Assessment of Observed Changes and Responses in Natural and Managed Systems
• Chapter 6 - Coastal Systems and Low-lying Areas
• Chapter 12 - Europe

She was also an IPCC expert reviewer.

Maybe she just has the right opinions.