The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was established in 1988 as a joint project of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The primary mission of the IPCC is to bring together the world's leading experts on the earth's climate to gather, assess, and disseminate scientific information about climate change, with a view to informing international and national policy makers. The IPCC has become the highest-profile and best-regarded international agency concerned with the climatic consequences of "greenhouse gases," such as carbon dioxide and methane, that are a byproduct of the combustion of fossil fuels. The IPCC is an organization that has been and continues to be at the center of a great deal of controversy.

The IPCC was established partly in response to Nobel Laureate Mario Molina's 1985 documentation of chemical processes which occur...