Apparently, many climate experts have financial conflicts while dispensing allegedly independent advice – pretty much like the financial conflicts that plague other fields.
This researcher was one of the central analysts whose work was used to design and then promote the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. The company he is promoting is a direct beneficiary of that legislation. At the same time, the researcher claims that his analyses offer an “independent environmental and economic evaluation of federal energy and climate policies.”
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There is a gold rush going on in climate research right now, as researchers scramble to cash in on their new-found access to politicians and philanthropists.
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Nothing could be more delegitimizing to climate science and policy than a toxic combination of unmitigated financial conflicts of interest and claims that climate researchers, by virtue of the noble cause, are exempt from the rules that govern every other setting where expertise and money intersect.
Source: “When scientific integrity is undermined in pursuit of financial and political gain”
The solution in most fields is to disclose conflicts of interest up front.
