Although most headlines today will read the other way around, it's importantly not to overlook that the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been central to coalescing the "scientific consensus," or what the public would recognize as the "scientific consensus." (Hear Climate Expert Richard Moss's assessment of the IPCC working group I report.) It's hard to image that we'd even be where are now without such effort. The Nobel Committee said as much in its announcement:
Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming. Thousands of scientists and officials from over one hundred countries have collaborated to achieve greater certainty as to the scale of the warming. Whereas in the 1980s global warming seemed to be merely an interesting hypothesis, the 1990s produced firmer evidence in its support. In the last few years, the connections have become even clearer and the consequences still more apparent.