Trudeau’s ‘Nobel Prize winner’ not so decorated
During an event in Ottawa Tuesday with science guy Bill Nye, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau touted one of his ministers as a “Nobel Prizewinning scientist.” At another event on Wednesday he said it again.
It’s a lofty claim, but subjecting it to the rigorous process of scientific inquiry — or, just some basic fact-checking — shows that it’s not exactly evidence-based. Science Minister Kirsty Duncan, in her pre-politics career as a geographer, contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations initiative that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, along with former U.S. vicepresident Al Gore. The panel shared the prize with Gore for their collective efforts to get the word out about climate change and to encourage “measures that are needed to counteract such change.”
Each report by the IPCC draws on the work of hundreds of scientists, so over the course of two decades, it’s likely that thousands of scientists contributed to the effort. And, faced with a number of scientists burnishing their resume by claiming to be Nobel Prize winners, in 2012 the organization publicly asked them to knock it off. “The prize was awarded to the IPCC as an organization, and not to any individual associated with the IPCC,” a statement read. “Thus it is incorrect to refer to any IPCC official, or scientist who worked on IPCC reports, as a Nobel laureate or Nobel Prize winner.”
Duncan’s government bio uses much more measured language, saying she “served on the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
The prize awarded to the IPCC and Gore was the Nobel Peace Prize, rather than one of the scientific prizes. The committee awarded this prize not necessarily for scientific achievement, but because it worried about the effects of climate change on world peace. Fortunately for Trudeau — whose office has not yet responded to comment — the IPCC offered a more factual way to credit contributors and recognize their efforts in a Nobel-winning report: “X contributed to the reports of the IPCC, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007,” the group suggests.
IT IS INCORRECT TO REFER TO ANY IPCC OFFICIAL, OR SCIENTIST WHO WORKED ON IPCC REPORTS, AS A NOBEL LAUREATE OR NOBEL PRIZE WINNER.