CSIRO has become ‘extravagant consulting company’, one of its former top climate scientists says

A leading Australian climate scientist says the national science agency, CSIRO, has been turned into a "very extravagant consulting company" under the Coalition, with its scientists barred from speaking publicly about government policy.

The warning from Prof David Karoly follows his retirement from the Commonwealth Science and Industry Research Organisation in February after more than 40 years as one of the most respected voices in climate science.

Karoly, who worked on four of the six major assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, returned to CSIRO in 2018. He agreed to head its Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub in the wake of the chief executive, Larry Marshall, making deep cuts to the organisation's climate science capacity on the grounds the problem was "proven". That push was partially reversed after public and political pressure, with Marshall later acknowledging it had been a mistake. Karoly signed on to help build a new program.

In an interview with Guardian Australia, Karoly says he knew the job would be challenging, and some people "questioned my sanity" for taking it on. He says he found budget cuts and changes in management had transformed CSIRO from a body focused on public good science into one reliant on external contracts to survive.

While he is proud he helped secure an effective 50% funding increase to be spent on a new climate systems hub, he says the cuts had been "stupid" and had a lasting impact. He says staff in CSIRO's oceans and atmosphere unit were last year told 70% of CSIRO funding now had to come from external earnings - contracts with industry and government agencies - rather than core funding for a project to be approved. Historically, there had been about 30% external funding.

Karoly argues it has fundamentally changed an organisation that was once known for its international-standard "public good" science. Famously, CSIRO radio astronomers accidentally invented what became wi-fi while doing unrelated public good research. Karoly says that sort of work is now less likely.

"CSIRO's approach is now to make money," he says. "It's essentially a very extravagant consulting company, and unless it has large enough external earnings science doesn't go ahead. It means public good science has disappeared from CSIRO unless someone else is willing to pay for it."