An independent group's recommendations might improve the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) process. But the real test is whether the next IPCC report's conclusions reflect genuine science, not blame-mankind extremism.

The 12-member group was chosen by the Amsterdam-based InterAcademy Council. The recommendations seek to bolster IPCC's credibility, justifiability diminished by errors in its 2007 report and the Climategate e-mails showing data irregularities.

Turning the IPCC — to date, mostly volunteer scientists who disband after each report — into a more professional outfit with more continuity could help avoid and correct such errors.

Also welcome: the suggestion that IPCC members avoid advocating specific policies and the subtle hint that Chairman Rajendra Pachauri — he of questionable climate expertise and apparent conflicts of interest — not head that next IPCC report.

Yet when it comes to substance, the group is brimful of alarmist Kool-Aid, saying humanity "very likely" is to blame for climate change. Until the IPCC takes that as a hypothesis to be evaluated objectively via the uncorrupted scientific method — not as the foregone conclusion its "science" must support — real reform won't occur.

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