Some climate scientists who believe that human-caused global warming is happening also believe that Sir Nicholas Stern's analysis of the economics of climate change made some major errors.
Some excerpts from the BBC story:
Expert critics of the review now claim that it overestimates the risk of severe global warming, and underestimates the cost of acting to stop it.
The message from the report's chief author, the economist Sir Nicholas Stern, was simple: if we did nothing about climate change, it would cost us the equivalent of at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever.
But if we acted today, we could prevent a catastrophe.
This point was emphasised at the report's launch by Mr Blair who warned we would see the disastrous consequences of climate change - not in some science fiction future, but in our lifetimes.
These figures sounded scary and imminent. But if you read the report in detail, that is not what it actually says.
The 5% damage to global GDP figure will not happen for well over one hundred years, according to Stern's predictions. And the review certainly does not forecast disastrous consequences in our lifetimes. ...
Professor Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, believes that when the IPCC report comes out next week, there will be a big difference between the science it contains and the climate debate in the UK.
"The IPCC is not going to talk about tipping points; it's not going to talk about 5m rises in sea level; it's not going to talk about the next ice age because the Gulf Stream collapses; and it's going to have none of the economics of the Stern Review," he said.
"It's almost as if a credibility gap has emerged between what the British public thinks and what the international science community think."
Building debate
When we put this comment to Sir Nicholas Stern, he replied: "The IPCC is a good process but it does depend on consensus and it means that they have to be quite cautious in what they say.
"We were able to look to the evidence and use it in a very particular way, to look at the economics of risk."
Sir Nicholas is aware of the increasing number of academic critiques of his review, but remains certain about his conclusions.
Climate scientists will deliver a major report next week"It is very important that the report is discussed; a number of people have raised interesting points and we will be discussing them all.
"There are no certainties; but the broad conclusion that the costs of action are a good deal less than the damages they save, I think is pretty robust."
None of Stern's critics are advocating doing nothing about climate change. What they disagree about is how much it is worth sacrificing now to try to prevent a worst-case scenario in a hundred years' time.
