The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has just come out with a special report on renewable energy. It has been embroiled in controversy from the very start. Most important, some of the climate experts involved in the preparation of the report have been accused of conflicts of interest. As you argue, IPCC should do its best to avoid such rows in the future (“A Climate of Conflict,” June 25, 2011). Granted. But many of the governments involved in this endeavor must like the rows in their own right. They provide the breathing space so valuable in politics. However, the IPCC has been sidelined not only by politics, but also because a growing number of people around the world accepts that climate change is not a scientific hoax. The ubiquitous storms, floods, and droughts are persuasive enough. As are piling images of melting glaciers and vanishing forests. Put differently, reports produced by the IPCC, special or otherwise, will matter ever less to all and sundry. And governments will manipulate them to their own ends with or without conflicts of interest.