The "controversial" Dr R K Pachauri

"This is a deliberate attempt to mislead and misguide the public," claims Pachauri, talking about Jonathan Leake. Asked, "Are you trying to say that the science editor (Leake) of The Times is part of a big diabolical conspiracy against you?" Pachauri answers: "Well, they are against anything to do with action against climate change. They are a bunch of skeptics. They are supported by lobbies...".

Says the interviewer, with more than a little scepticism creeping into his tone: "Times of London is part of the skeptic ...". Pachauri responds: "Well of course, well of course. I mean you have people of this shade of opinion all over the world. They exist in London. London is still not ruling the empire."

This is from a four-part interview – see the rest on Liberty News Central, with commentary.

The interesting thing is the damage-limitation technique being employed. Pachauri clings to the line that the Himalayan debacle was a "mistake" – when he knows full well that it was not. He then tries to narrow the field, focusing on the "single mistake", without acknowledging that there are many more.

As to the role of Hasnain, he limits his narrative to the single episode of the WHO report citation, but does not deal with his wider role in promoting the glacier scare. Incidentally, Pachauri repeats the scare, dropping into the conversation that the glaciers are going to melt in 50 years. "Ok, let me first clarify," he says, "... the glaciers are melting. Now whether they melt by 2035 or 2050 is another matter."

On the matter of the funding, he admits that his institute is being paid to examine the downstream effects of the glacier melt – i.e., that the work does depend on the scare that his own Dr Hasnain raised. He admits to a share of just over €400,000 (about £350,000 at current exchange rates) from the EU work – but has not actually received any money yet.

Nor, he says, has he received any money from the Carnegie Corporation – so the charge that he has been paid this money is "lies". "We haven't got a single penny from the Carnegie corporation. We have been in a discussion with them to fund our glacier research... ". But, he adds: "it will come to us ... Who's going to stop that money coming to us? Because the funding organizations are not fools. They're not going to listen to all these lies."

The interviewer suggests that Pachauri goes into the Himalayas and reflects upon the mistakes he's made. All we can suggest is that he makes it a very long time.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD