Fifteen Years With No Global Warming Doesn't Mean There's No Global Warming, Says EPA Chief

By Karen Schuberg
CNSNews.com
Feb. 26, 2010

(CNSNews.com) – Fifteen years with no statistically significant increase in global temperatures does not mean that the human race is not causing the climate to change, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told CNSNews.com on Tuesday.

Jackson reasserted her faith in manmade global warming in response to a question from CNSNews.com asking if she agreed with the recent statement by prominent climate scientist Phil Jones that there had been no statistically significant global warming since 1995.

Jackson also said “we need to move aggressively” to pass energy regulation legislation.

On Capitol Hill Tuesday, after a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, CNSNews.com asked Jackson if she agreed or disagreed with one of the world’s top climate-change scientists that there had been no statistically significant global warming for the past 15 years.

“Do you agree with Dr. Phil Jones, the former head of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995?” CNSNews.com specifically asked.

Jackson responded: “I believe all the new information we have doesn’t lead to any different conclusion than what we reached in the Endangerment Finding. And that is that climate is changing and that mankind is responsible in part for that change, and that we need to move aggressively.”

She added that the U.S. should move to adopt the so-called “cap-and-trade” bill that is stalled in Congress.

“We need to move clean energy legislation,” Jackson said. “We need to move to addressing carbon and putting a price on carbon emissions.”

During the hearing, as she laid out her plan for the 2011 budget, Jackson was adamant in her defense of global warming.

“The science regarding climate change is settled, and human activity is responsible for global warming,” Jackson said.

Later on, she added: “What this program needs is money.”

In a Feb. 13 interview with the BBC, Prof. Phil Jones, ex-head of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and among the world’s leading experts on global warming, was asked: “Do you agree that from 1995 to the present that there has been no statistically significant global warming?”

“Yes,” said Jones, “but only just. I also calculated the trend for the period from 1995-2009. This trend (0.12 per decade) is positive, but not significant at the 95 percent significance level. The positive trend is quite close to the significance level. Achieving statistical significance in scientific terms is much more likely for longer periods, and much less likely for shorter periods.”

Jones also told the BBC that he does not think the debate on climate change is over.

The BBC asked Jones, “When scientists say, ‘the debate on climate change is over,’ what exactly do they mean – and what don’t they mean?”

Jones answered, “It would be a supposition on my behalf to know whether all scientists who say the debate is over are saying that for the same reason. I don’t believe the vast majority of climate scientists think it is. This is not my view. There is still much that needs to be undertaken to reduce uncertainties, not just for the future, but for the instrumental (and especially the palaeoclimatic) past as well.”

Jones became involved in a controversy last fall when numerous leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia caused critics of the climate-change theory Jones espouses to raise questions about the foundations of the science. Jones has relinquished his post as head of the university’s Climatic Research Unit pending an investigation.

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Transcript:

CNSNews.com: Do you agree with Dr. Phil Jones, the former head of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia that there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995?

Lisa Jackson, EPA administrator: I believe all the new information we have doesn’t lead to any different conclusion than what we reached in the Endangerment Finding. And that is that climate is changing and that mankind is responsible in part for that change and that we need to move aggressively. We need to move clean energy legislation. We need to move to addressing carbon and putting a price on carbon emissions.