Do only scientists connected to the UN Climate Panel agree that humankind's contribution to CO2 emissions causes global warming? No, that's not true: In the peer-reviewed scientific literature, there is a consensus of over 99 percent among published scientists, affirming that human activities are the primary cause of climate change.
The claim originated from a video (archived here) on TikTok where it was published by @motoristesobe on October 21, 2023, under the title (translated from Czech to English by Lead Stories staff): "Europe's green transformation and scientists linked to the UN climate panel. What is it really about?" It opened:
Green Deal is a response to the findings of scientists associated with the UN Climate Panel, who have asserted that CO2 emissions are contributing to global warming. That's a thing which serious scientists not connected to the UN Climate Panel, questioning and leading a deep serious equivocal debate.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Fri Nov 3 10:54:07 2023 UTC)
In a 2021 survey published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research Letters, which reviewed over 88,125 climate-related studies from 2012 to 2020, the authors discovered that over 99.9 percent of peer-reviewed scientific papers concurred that human activities are responsible for climate change. This represents an increase from the 2013 data, which indicated that 97 percent of studies published between 1991 and 2012 supported the idea of human-induced climate change.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. According to their website, there are hundreds of leading experts in different areas who volunteer their time to write reports. Hundreds are involved in drafting specific contributions and commenting on chapters as reviewers.
The IPCC, established on December 6, 1988, is supported by numerous organizations that endorse the consensus that over 97% of actively publishing climate scientists agree on human contributions to climate change.
During the 1970s, some individuals who denied the concept of global warming espoused a popular contrary belief called "global cooling." Nevertheless, experts assert that the consensus supporting the global cooling hypothesis is a myth. A 2008 study, that reviewed scientific literature from 1965 to 1979, found that seven papers supported cooling, 20 were neutral, and 44 supported the idea of global warming.
Lead Stories has previously debunked a similar claim.
