Doreen Stabinsky is a professor of global environmental politics at the College of the Atlantic i...Doreen Stabinsky is a professor of global environmental politics at the College of the Atlantic in Maine. She has closely observed the IPCC and its members responsible for approving international carbon-accounting models. “The IPCC isn't a neutral body… Their meetings are loudly political,” she told Mongabay.In particular, both the UK and EU appear to have slipped through a large loophole in order to “disappear” real emissions from their carbon accounting, as one source told me, thus undermining the Paris Agreement’s critically important carbon-mitigation strategies.

“Why does the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) appear to accept inaccurate emissions accounting?” Professor Doreen Stabinsky asked me, then answered: Because “IPCC scientists are technocrats. It is not a neutral body. There is a lot of politics behind the positions of individuals on the IPCC. Their meetings are often loudly political.” Stabinsky speaks from firsthand knowledge: she studies the nexus between environmental policy and politics at College of the Atlantic, Maine.

Bioenergy representatives, Stabinsky points out, are IPCC members and help write UN emissions guidelines. Likewise, countries with large areas of forest, such as the United States and Brazil, lobby to avoid counting or undercounting forest-related carbon emissions, including that from biomass burning.

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