The £3 million mistakes

Bowing to the inevitable, IPCC vice chairman Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, has held his hands up and admitted that his beloved institution has "made some mistakes".

This is according to the Wall Stree Journal, hot off the press, citing van Ypersele saying that the climate summit in Copenhagen didn't rely "on the precise date of the demise of Himalayan glaciers, or African agriculture" to tackle global warming.

"It's the body of evidence" in the whole report that makes the case for action, he says, stressing that the revelations don't impugn the IPCC's main conclusions: that climate change is largely due to man-made greenhouse-gas emissions and could have dangerous consequences. Effectively, they are holding their hands up on "Africagate".

Nevertheless, Ottmar Edenhofer, a German economist who is co-chairing one of the main sections of AR5, admits, "This has not increased the credibility of the IPCC." "There is some room for improvement," he says.

Creeping in though is the fiction that the report is compiled by thousands of scientists and other experts who "volunteer their time" with the IPCC, as if this somehow excuses the sloppy work.

Like so many things to do with the IPCC, though, this misrepresents the truth. Most of the authors and editors are on secondment from their own national bodies, retaining their salaries and having their expenses fully paid, either by their sponsoring institutions or the IPCC.

Somebody who is keeping their head down on this is WGII co-chair, Professor Martin Parry (pictured), who bears a great deal of personal responsibility for the error-strewn report.

Not least, when it comes to "Africagate", the professor – an expert in climate change impacts on agriculture – should have known better.

In a paper authored by himself in 2007, entitled "The Implications of Climate Change for Crop Yields, Global Food Supply and Risk of Hunger", he cites modelling scenarios which predict decreases in yields in Africa, by the 2080s, of "up to 30 percent." This is a very far cry from the drop of "up to 50 percent by 2020" in rainfed agriculture, that he allowed in the IPCC report.

And it is not as if he was not handsomely rewarded for his efforts. Through his own personal consultancy, Martin Parry Associates, he was paid £330,187 by Defra, for the part-time post of: "Acting as Co-chair of Working group II at meetings of IPCC WG II and associated groups."

Additionally, his consultancy was paid £10,690, again by Defra to "assess the global impact of climate change on world food supply and global food security" - the very issue in which Parry is supposedly expert.

That was, presumably, separate from the contract in the financial year 2002/2003 for a study on "Global Impacts of Climate Change on Food Security". For that, Parry Associates were paid £64,020. That was the year, incidentally, that the Global Atmosphere Division of Defra supported 35 research contracts on climate change, in 21 different establishments, at a total of £12 million.

These sums, however, are only a small part of the total which went into preparing the WGII report. Defra also paid £1,436,162 to "provide the scientific and administrative Technical Support Unit (TSU) for Working Group II (WGII) on Impacts and Adaptation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and to provide support for the chair of WGII, Professor Martin Parry and the preparation of the IPCC AR4 Synthesis report," paid via the UK Met Office.

An entirely separate sum of £1,144,738 was awarded to Working Group II Technical Support Unit under the amorphous title "An international commitment to provide technical support on climate change," also paid to the Met Office.

This means that the scientists and experts who "volunteered their time" on WGII were paid to the tune of nearly £3 million (£2,921,777) by British taxpayers alone – which does not of course include the sums paid by other nations and the production costs, or the payments by the IPCC directly.

For that money alone, with Prof Martin Parry taking a third of a million to chair the group, the taxpayers should rightfully expect a gold-plated report instead of the error-strewn shambles, with IPCC officials grudgingly admitting that we "made some mistakes". For £3 million a pop, they need to do better than that.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

Repeating its mistakes

Pachauri is looking even more shaky, according to Ben Webster in The Times, as his allies peel away.

The latest is John Sauven, director of Greenpeace UK, who wants Pachauri replaced. He says of the Himalayan glaciers that the good doctor should have acted as soon as he had been informed of the "error", even though issuing a correction would have embarrassed the IPCC on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit.

"Mistakes will always be made," says Sauven, "but it's how you handle those mistakes which affects the credibility of the institution. Pachauri should have put his hand up and said 'we made a mistake'. It's in these situations that your character and judgment is tested. Do you make the right judgment call? He clearly didn't."

Pachauri is the man, of course, who when first confronted with doubts as to the glacier claim, dismissed their author as indulging in "voodoo science", refusing even to countenance error. And now, under the tutelage of its master, the IPCC is repeating the mistake.

In a press release issued yesterday, it gave a no compromise response to the latest gaffes to be detected. It writes:

Recent media interest has drawn attention to two so-called errors in the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the IPCC, the first dealing with losses from disasters and the second on the subject of Amazon forests. The leadership of the IPCC has looked into both these instances and concluded that the challenges are without foundations.

In neither case, did we find any basis for making changes in the wording of the report. We are convinced that there has been no error on those issues on the part of the IPCC. We released a statement about the disaster issue. As far as the second subject dealing with the Amazon is concerned, again, the IPCC has valid reasons for publishing the text as it stands in the report.

In response to these baseless charges, we have decided to provide details on the manner in which the IPCC has implemented its principles and procedures. These are the foundations that provide assurance on the validity and accuracy of statements made in the AR4.

Those "details" are here, an amalgam of complacency, insufferable arrogance and wishful thinking, demonstrating that the organisation has learned nothing from its "Glaciergate" experience. Such is its inability to read the mood, it seems set to conspire in its own downfall.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

A well-financed and vicious plot

"For the first time, Indians are experiencing an organised, systematic and vicious attack by powerful and well-funded lobbies in the developed world.

These lobbies are aiming to diminish the perception of the impact of global warming and climate change on our common future, and the consequent need to change our lifestyle. Such lifestyle changes will damage the future of many industries, so there are vast resources and stakes in continuing present consumption styles."

That is the considered view of S L Rao, a visiting fellow at Dr Pachauri's Teri and former director general of National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER), writing in the Indian Business Standard under the headline: "Behind the attacks on Pachauri".

Pachauri himself is just as bad, if less explicit, reported in The Financial Times as declining to name anyone behind the concerted attack on the IPCC (and himself), saying it was probably backed by powerful corporate interests determined to thwart concerted action against global warming.

There I am then, sitting in the back room of a house that is not even worth as much as Dr Pachauri's back yard, deep in an obscure suburb of unfashionable Bradford, 200 miles north of London, fending off the bailiffs only with the help of our generous readers and the occasional commission for a newspaper – bashing away at a £300-laptop, so worn that the lettering on some of the keys is now invisible.

And now, variously, my little free-lance effort has become part of "an organised, systematic and vicious attack by powerful and well-funded lobbies in the developed world" backed by "powerful corporate interests determined to thwart concerted action against global warming" (probably).

I wish.

But, according to S L Rao, the anti-climate change lobby has, after Copenhagen, mounted such an attack on R K Pachauri, and thus on the credibility of the IPCC and its reports on climate change. It started with vicious personal attacks on Pachauri’s earnings from his counselling of various organisations around the world.

When they discovered that Pachauri gave all payments made to him in connection with such work to Teri, says Rao, they charged him with using his position to help fund Teri. They then found a serious mistake in the findings in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report relating to the melting of Himalayan glaciers, and used this mistake to condemn the idea of climate change itself!

In the case of Himalayan glaciers, by focusing on an overstated conclusion of obviously incompetent "assessment", the anti-climate change lobby is trying to deny climate change as a whole. With its personal attack on the chief of the IPCC, it is trying to discredit his values and principles to claim that IPCC's reports are biased for his personal financial benefit and that of his organisation, thus discrediting all IPCC's laborious work in four reports over many years.

By further extending the attack to Teri, the lobby is trying to discredit the work of a unique Indian interdisciplinary research-cum-action organisation, and attack its funding sources — a vulnerable point of any research organisation.

We, in India, warns S L Rao, "must be aware of this well-financed and vicious plot by international agencies."

While the IPCC and all research organisations must be ever vigilant in terms of the quality of people it employs, the quality of supervision, and review, the work of two Indian "glaciologists" must not be allowed to bring disrepute to Indian science. But, we can be certain that the anti-climate change lobby will persist in trying to discredit IPCC's work, its president and others in the organisation.

These people just can't cope with the idea that they've been blagged by an unpaid blogger on the other side of the world, reaching out through the power of the internet, one of many other bloggers who have taken on the might of the warmists and have given them – and all their billions in funding – a run for their money.

Roger Harrabin of the BBC half gets it, noting that "the web is the home of right-wing bloggers who campaign politically against the IPCC." But, for all its frequent vitriol and false accusations, he writes, "the blogosphere has been proven at least partially right on occasions. Any future iteration of the IPCC, he says, will have to find a way of taking the serious bloggers seriously."

The trouble is they don't understand bloggers, don't understand how they derive their power and, most of all, cannot conceive that a few dedicated people, motivated entirely by principle, can use the medium blogging affords and run circles round them.

In their narrow, corporate world, slaves to their paymasters and their vested interests, they can only see the world through the prism of their own experiences. And, like S L Rao, they get it hopelessly and laughably wrong. That is why we're going to beat them. The "monster" always has a blind spot – and we've found it.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

The latest exaggeration

Steve McIntyre over at Climate Audit picks up the latest exaggeration in the IPCC report, via the Dutch newspaper Vrij Nederland.

This is to be found in Chapter 12 of the WGII report, where it tells us:

The Netherlands is an example of a country highly susceptible to both sea-level rise and river flooding because 55% of its territory is below sea level where 60% of its population lives and 65% of its Gross National Product (GNP) is produced.

In fact, as the newspaper tells us, these figures are far too high. The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) states that only one fifth of the Netherlands is below sea level and that only 19 percent rather than 65 percent of the GDP generated is generated in that area.

Steve observes that even 20 percent is not something that can be ignored, but the percentage below sea level is the sort of thing that primary school geography classes should be able to get right.

There is more to it than that, though. As the evidence builds, it is possible to say that this is more than sloppy work or a few "mistakes". As with the temperatures claimed to prove global warming, every "error" points in one direction, exaggerating the impacts of climate change.

Thus, while glaciers may or may not be melting, if you accept that they are, then the 2035 figure is a gross exaggeration. A portion of the Amazon rain forest may be at risk from climate change – specifically reduced rainfall – but both the figure of 40 percent and the suggestion that the forests are susceptible to slight reductions in precipitation are gross exaggerations.

That seems to be the underlying modus operandi of the IPCC – serial, structured exaggeration in order to build its case. How many more examples do we need before they stop talking about "mistakes" and admit to deliberate fraud?

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

He doesn't give up

"The science of climate change is now well established. This is the result of painstaking work of over two decades carried out by thousands of scientists drawn from across the globe to assess every aspect of climate change for the benefit of humanity.

The Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was produced in the year 2007, and highlighted, on the basis of careful observations extending over a long period of time, that 'warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice and rising global average sea level.'"

An authored piece by R K Pachauri in The Hindu today. Given recent events, it assumes an almost comic aspect.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

Amazongate in The Sunday Times

From Jonathan Leake in The Sunday Times we get an article headed: "UN climate panel shamed by bogus rainforest claim," - one of several on climate change in today's edition

It tells us that a "startling report" in the IPCC report claiming that that global warming might wipe out 40% of the Amazon rainforest "was based on an unsubstantiated claim by green campaigners who had little scientific expertise."

This is "Amazongate" writ large, where the IPCC launched the scare story that even a slight change in rainfall could see swathes of the rainforest rapidly replaced by savanna grassland – and the source turns out to be a report from WWF, an environmental pressure group, which was authored by two green activists.

They had based their "research" (Leake's quotations) on a study published in Nature which did not assess rainfall but in fact looked at the impact on the forest of human activity such as logging and burning. This weekend WWF said it was launching an internal inquiry into the study.

The detail is familiar to readers of this blog, and some might note a small addition at the end of the piece which says: "Research by Richard North", in what has been a fruitful partnership.

Crucially, Leake brings to the table the substance of an exchange with Simon Lewis, a Royal Society research fellow at Leeds University who specialises in tropical forest ecology. This is the same Simon Lewis cited by the BBC's Roger Harrabin, who has him say: "The IPCC statement is basically correct but poorly written, and bizarrely referenced."

Leake, who had extensive communications with the man, however, presents a completely different picture. Lewis describes the section of Rowell and Moore's report predicting the potential destruction of large swathes of rainforest as "a mess".

In a direct quote, Lewis goes on to say: "The Nature paper is about the interactions of logging damage, fire and periodic droughts, all extremely important in understanding the vulnerability of Amazon forest to drought, but is not related to the vulnerability of these forests to reductions in rainfall." Then we get Lewis saying: "In my opinion the Rowell and Moore report should not have been cited; it contains no primary research data."

Compare and contrast this with The Sunday Telegraph view that the IPCC had "accurately represented" the Nature paper.

Leake is clearly unconvinced, reporting that this is the third time in as many weeks that serious doubts have been raised over the IPCC's conclusions on climate change. And this weekend Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, was fighting to keep his job after a barrage of criticism – which is why The Sunday Telegraph writes a 750-word piece about his new novel.

Even the WWF takes it more seriously, saying it prided itself on the accuracy of its reports, but is investigating the latest concerns. "We have a team of people looking at this internationally," says Keith Allott, its climate change campaigner.

Scientists such as Lewis are demanding that the IPCC ban the use of reports from pressure groups. Georg Kaser, a glaciologist who was a lead author on the last IPCC report, said: "Groups like WWF are not scientists and they are not professionally trained to manage data. They may have good intentions but it opens the way to mistakes."

And, in its own leader, headed, "Bad science needs good scrutiny", The Sunday Times makes a comparison between Dr Wakefield, who has recently been savaged by the GMC, and Dr Pachauri who "is still head of the IPCC, although he presided over the use of dodgy science in its reports and ignored legitimate criticism of that science."

"He should go," says the paper.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

Pachauri: the Deutsche Bank connection

Attendees at the inaugural Deutsche Bank Leadership Forum in Berlin on 4 June this year were there for a specific purpose. Unashamedly, the "DB Leadership Forum", as the Bank likes to call it, exists solely to discuss "Business opportunities in addressing climate change".

Would that they knew it, one of their keynote speakers was a living testament to the "business opportunities" so afforded. This was none other than Dr Rajendera Pachauri, whose TERI business was being paid €100,000 (that we know of) for his membership of the Climate Change Advisory Board of Deutsche Bank. Whether TERI was paid separately for its Director General's guest appearance in Berlin, we have not been told.

However, it would appear that Dr Pachauri is not exactly heavily taxed by his duties for the Advisory Board. On its inception in April 2008, its members were scheduled to meet with the Bank's own Environmental Steering Committee (ESC) twice a year.

We are told also that, in addition to these two main meetings, the two committees conduct an ongoing dialog in smaller committees dealing with specific topics, such as energy efficiency.

Nevertheless, even the generous payment for Dr Pauchauri's services seems not to have been sufficient for the chairman of the IPCC. For its first meeting on 2 April 2008, according to official UN documentation, Dr Pachauri also claimed this meeting as part of his "outreach" activities on behalf of the IPCC.

To attend this meeting, Dr Pachauri flew 3,676 miles from Addis Ababa to London on 30 March, where the business recorded is the advisory board meeting, a meeting with Mr Caio Koch-Weser vice chairman of the Bank and a meeting with Emma Duncan, deputy editor of the Economist. From there, Pachauri flies – again at IPCC expense – a further 924 miles, this time to Budapest for the 37th Session of the IPCC Bureau on 6 – 10 April.

On the face of it, therefore, this appears to be another example of Dr Pachauri working for his own commercial interests while booking his expenses to the IPCC.

You could, perhaps, take the view that Pachauri's meeting with the Economist's Emma Duncan might have justified the trip – except that Duncan does not seem to have been acting in a journalistic capacity. She is perhaps more concerned with the forthcoming Economist conference, entitled, "The Carbon Economy: New Opportunities for Green Business".

At the time, this was being organised by the Economist, to be held on 17-18 November 2009 in Washington. Pachauri was to be a keynote speaker – his fee is not recorded.

On that day of 2 April, though, Pauchauri, has yet other interests. His separate meeting with Mr Caio Koch-Weser, clearly yields dividends.

On 26 June, less than two months after the meeting, Deutsche Bank announces the launch of a Deutsche Bank Scholarship for the MBA (Infrastructure) programme at the TERI University in Delhi. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this effect is signed by Dr R K Pachauri, the Chancellor, TERI University and Mr. Caio Koch-Weser, vice chairman, Deutsche Bank Group.

Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Koch-Weser says, "I am delighted that Deutsche Bank has joined hands with TERI."

The assiduous courting of Koch-Weser has paid off. Pachauri's meeting with the Bank's vice-chairman on 2 April was by no means the first. They also meet on 3 October 2007, at the international lecture by The Royal Academy of Engineering in London, and also with the Academy president, Lord Browne of Madingley, who is also later co-opted on the Bank's advisory board. Koch-Weser and Pachauri then meet on 17 January 2008, this time at the Carbon Trust Winter Lecture, also in London.

Both of these meetings, incidentally, are claimed as part of the IPCC chairman's "outreach" activities. And, strangely, there is no further record of a Deutsche Bank advisory board meeting until 14 November 2008. We have not yet been advised whether Pachauri claimed the expenses from the UN.

For the record, they do meet yet again, at the World Sustainable Development Forum on 5-7 February 2009, where the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit of 2009 is holding a conference under the title "Towards Copenhagen: an equitable and ethical approach". Koch-Weser, by the way, is chaired by Mr Nik Gowing, main presenter of the BBC World Service.


As for Deutsche Bank, it actually has four billion reasons for its interest in climate change and Dr Pachuari, something which its website so clearly explains.

Having identified climate change as "one of the mega-trends that would drive the global asset management business for the next generation and beyond," it has become "one of the leading climate change investors in the world." As of March 2009, it had approximately $4 billion under its management.

At a mere €100,000 - so far declared - they might think Pachauri comes relatively cheap.

PACHAURI THREAD

Pachauri: they've all got it in for me!

The charges are baseless. "Powerful vested interests are acting against me," says Pachauri. Yea ... really powerful vested interests. Anyhow, the great man then goes on to admit:

Yes, I advise a number of organisations, both in India and overseas. And some of them are, you know, banks like the Deutsche Bank and they do provide payment for it. But each penny of it goes to my institute. I never take a single penny for myself. So much so I get honoraria, sometimes pretty generous honoraria, for giving talks in various places, but the cheque goes directly to my institute.

Then what? How much does his "institute" pay him? Houses in Golf Links Road don't come cheap. And then there's the servants to pay.

Nevertheless, says Pachauri, "My record is impeccable. I've always been totally scrupulous about every single penny's transaction. So I'm certainly going to take action on this ... ". But, asked whether he would take legal action, the great man would not commit himself. "I'll decide what kind of action, they're going to hear more about it."

So far, we haven't heard.

PACHAURI THREAD

Pachauri in expenses scam

Not only has Dr R K Pachauri, chairman of the UN's IPCC been developing a very significant portfolio of private interests, evidence is mounting that he has been carrying out his business activities for these organisations under the guise of his UN duties, and charging the expenses to the UN.

This has emerged in part from an official document published by the IPCC Secretariat late August 2008 in response to public questions about Pachauri's "carbon footprint" arising from his globe-trotting activities.

Under the title "Outreach activities carried out by the IPCC Chairman", covering his itinerary for January 2007 to July 2008, the main purpose was to reassure the public that, while engaged on UN activities he had indeed flown many miles, in each case the UN had paid "carbon offsets" for the flights – details of which were listed against each "official" engagement.

However, unwittingly, this document has revealed more than either the UN – and certainly Dr Pachauri – had intended. It provides effective proof that, on more than one occasion Pachauri was indeed using UN funding for his own commercial interests.

One egregious example of this comes on 7 July 2008, when – in amongst his 443,243 miles flown in the 19-month period - Dr Pachauri is recorded by the UN as having travelled 1,432 miles from Abu Dhabi, where he was attending the Zayed Future Energy Prize Award, to visit Delhi for what is officially described as "Visit of Basque delegation to TERI".

There, he meets José Antonio -Tontxu- Campos Granados, Minister Of Education, Universities And Research and Esther Larrañaga Galdos, Minister Of Environment And Land Use Planning, both from the Basque Government. No other business is recorded that day, or at all until 14 July when, at the UN's expense, he flies 3,446 miles to Vienna for a UN ceremony.

However, while the UN records this as official business, the Basque delegation is perhaps unaware of this. On one of its own official websites, it records that the delegation visited the TERI offices to meet its Director General, Dr RK Pachauri, in order to sign a collaboration agreement between TERI and their own research institute, the Basque Institute Centre on Climate Change (BC3) – which had only been set up the previous April.

Interestingly, the research director of BC3 is Professor Anil Markandya, formerly of Bath University and lead author for Working Group III (on mitigation of climate impacts) in the IPCC 4th Assessment and a contributing author for Working Group II (on identifying the impacts of climate change). Markandya was, therefore, working with Pachauri's IPCC on the report which gained his boss a share in the Nobel Prize.

Whether a fee was paid by the Basques to TERI is not clear, but the deal is agreed for three years, amounting to adding to BC3 staff, from September, a series of "top-level international experts" from TERI, while a number of Masters students are sent to India.

There, we find that they are to partake in a new Masters programme "to train students in sustainable development", taught at the TERI University based in Delhi. The programme is to be funded to the tune of $900,000 by the Chicago-based John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation which, as we reported, also sponsors Pachauri's TERI North America operation in Washington.

Another "partner" to the programme is, incidentally, the University of East Anglia, home of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of Climategate fame.

Whatever the finer details of the arrangement with the Basques might have been, however, what is amply clear is that their official visit to Delhi on 7 July to meet Pachauri in Delhi had nothing whatsoever to do with UN business – and everything to do with Pachauri's personal position as Director General of TERI.

For that, at UN expense, Pachauri took a 1,432 miles from Abu Dhabi to get to Delhi and then a 3,446-mile trip to Vienna, totalling 4,878 miles. The direct route from Abu Dhabi to Vienna is 2,637 miles, with Pachauri's private business adding over 2,000 miles to his journey.

Whether there would have been other arrangements in place for Pachauri to have returned home to India in the week that elapsed between 7 and 14 July when he was due in Vienna, we cannot tell. But the fact is that Pachauri's official place of work as chairman of the IPCC is Geneva, where its offices are based. He had no reason to go to Delhi other than on private business, yet he was falsely recorded as representing the UN.

In most jurisdictions, this kind of deception is regarded as theft and most employers treat gross misuse of expenses as a sackable offence. For the gifted and so far untouchable Dr Pachauri, however, this seems to be just another perk of the job.

PACHAURI THREAD

It's all lies!

... says millionaire businessman Dr Rajendra Pachauri in response to our article in The Sunday Telegraph.

"These are a pack of lies from people who are getting desperate," he tells the Times of India. They want to go after the guy whose voice is being heard. I haven't pocketed a single penny from my association with companies and institutes. All honoraria that I get goes to TERI and to its Light a Billion Lives campaign for reaching solar power to people without electricity. All my dealings are totally above board."

The poor man is having a little trouble with setting out his case though. He points out that the previous IPCC chairman was in the World Bank and the one before that was a professor. "Can you then say the university benefited from his association with IPCC?"

And the point is? In addition to his paid post as Director-General of TERI, Pachauri has taken on over twenty additional posts since becoming chairman of the IPCC – another of his paid posts.

As for the link with the Tata group, Pachauri claims, "Our ties ended when Darbari Seth, who was on our board, died in 1999. We haven't received a single penny from Tatas for years and have no ties with them." Which is why, of course, up to January 2003 the "T" in TERI stood for "Tata", only then being changed to The Energy & Resources Institute.

Then, as we recalled, TERI's own communication manager Annapurna Vancheswaran said nothing had really changed. "We have not severed our past relationship with the Tatas. It's only (the change of name) for convenience," was the official line, four years after Pachauri says he has severed all ties with them.

Then there is the little matter of one of the Tata group of companies being listed currently as a corporate sponsor. To add to that, TERI has two ongoing projects with Tata, one which started in January and the other in July, plus eight completed projects from 2001-2007. That sort of suggests not only a link, but an ongoing relationship (screen grab - one of many - below).


We also have one of Pachauri's other little enterprises, a spin-off called the TERI Business Council for Sustainable Development (TERI-BCSD). Its president is Dr RK Pachauri, its co-chair is Dr J J Irani, described as "Tata Group of Companies". One of the vice-chairs is Mr Homi Khusrokhan, Tata Chemicals Ltd. Its members include Tata Chemicals Ltd, Tata Motors Ltd, Tata Quality Management Services and Tata Steel Ltd.

And who should be on TERI's Advisory Board? Ah! the very same Dr Jamshed J Irani, this time described as Director of Tata Sons Limited, Bombay House, 24 Homi Mody Street, Mumbai – 400001, Maharashtra. Irani is right at the centre of the beast.

Tata Sons, says the company, is the promoter of all key Tata companies and holds the bulk of shareholding in these companies. The chairman of Tata Sons has traditionally been the chairman of the Tata group. Tata Sons is the owner of the Tata name and the Tata trademark, which are registered in India and several other countries.

Socially, Pachauri and Tata also seem to get on quite well. On 13 November last year, Pachauri was invited round to the residence of the Norwegian ambassador in Delhi to sign a £6.3 million (60 million Norwegian Kroners) contract between the Norwegian government and TERI. His institute was being hired for five years to carry out work on energy, environment and climate change issues "in partnership with other institutes."

To celebrate, Pachauri, described as "Chair of the Noble Peace Prize-winning, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change", and Ratan Tata were guests of honour for the evening at a "Norwegian Creative Experience". Ratan Tata happens to be the Chairman of Tata Sons, the very head honcho, pictured below left being welcomed by Ambassador Ann Ollestad.

Our Dr Pachauri is not only a liar - he is not even a very good liar.

Nevertheless, this does not stop him claiming of us that we "are part of the same vested interest group which hacked the server of UK's East Anglia University." He adds: "They are getting desperate because the world is now serious about moving away from fossil fuels. I want to ask them how much money they spent in the operation? Hacking a server is a costly exercise," he said.

That isn't really worth an answer. It is not us who are desperate. This man is clutching at straws. But he doesn't give up. He argues that TERI submits its yearly accounts to the government under Section 12 of the income tax law. "We fully comply with all government laws," he said.

Hey! But that's not the point we made. Does he publish TERI's accounts in its annual report? Does he publish his salary as Director General? Er ... no. Do we even get to know what his IPCC salary is? Er ... no.

Pachauri, who recently took up the post of the head of the Climate and Energy Institute at Yale University, then says the appointment was held up for a while because he had insisted that his salary be credited to TERI. "My conscience is clear and that is why I am cool towards these allegations."

That, of course, is a good move. If his Yale salary (which is likely to be at least in six figures) was paid directly to him, he would have to pay US income tax on it. And, as Tony Blair has just found out, the details are then publicly available through the IRS. As it is, he can launder the money through TERI and take the money out of the business in India where there is less scrutiny.

On whether he intends to take legal action against us, Pachauri says he hadn’t made up his mind. "Action against these people only gives dignity to these guys," he adds.

But he dare not. If he chose to sue, we could demand full disclosure of his financial affairs, through the courts. And then the millionaire businessman would have some explaining to do – not least how he is booking his business expenses to the IPCC. And yes, I do have the evidence.

Up yours, Pachauri, you are a thief as well as a liar.

Picture credit Jo Nova, from Skeptics Handbook II - used with thanks.

PACHAURI THREAD

High Noon for Pachauri

Given his involvement in a huge variety of extra-mural activities, whenever the chairman of the IPCC, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, makes a pronouncement on climate, it would be wise to assess where his true interests lie.

This most certainly should have been the case in early November, when the Indian environment ministry – with the support of its minister - published a detailed report of a scientific study, arguing that there was no evidence climate change had shrunk Himalayan glaciers.

Vijay Kumar Raina, the geologist who authored the report, admitted that some "Himalayan glaciers are retreating. But it is nothing out of the ordinary," he said, "Nothing to suggest as some have said that they will disappear."

Retreating glaciers, of course, are a central part of the iconography of the warmist movement. Only the previous year, UNEP, one of the IPCC's parent organisations, had announced that the world's glaciers were "continuing to melt away" with the latest official figures showing "record losses". It was, therefore, hardly surprising that the study was immediately denounced. But what was surprising was the vehemence of the attack – by no lesser person than Dr Pachauri, ostensibly in his role as chairman of the IPCC.

Speaking to The Guardian, he positively exuded vitriol, declaring: "We have a very clear idea of what is happening. I don't know why the minister is supporting this unsubstantiated research. It is an extremely arrogant statement."

He then went on to say, "My concern is that this comes from western scientists … it is high time India makes an investment in understanding what is happening in the Himalayan ecosystem," then snarling that such statements were reminiscent of "climate change deniers and school boy science".

Thus having vented his spleen, Pachauri rounded off by telling the paper, "I cannot see what the minister's motives are. We do need more extensive measurement of the Himalayan range but it is clear from satellite pictures what is happening."

The irony of this last statement is far from obvious, but the question about motives should have been addressed to Pachauri – he had three million of them. That is the price in euros of the EU research programme under which his institute had been awarded a contract – to assess the effects of the Himalayan glaciers retreat, caused by climate change. No wonder he was so keen on the need for "more extensive measurement".

The EU programme, given the unashamedly alarmist title "High Noon" after the classic Western film of the same name, had been launched in the May. It was to run for three years, "bringing together leading research institutions in the Netherlands, Britain, Switzerland and India," including The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), of which Dr Pachauri is Director General.

Apart from his more obvious concern as chairman of the IPCC, Pachauri thus had an undeclared financial interest in protecting his own organisation's stake in a lucrative research project which depended for its very existence on the premise that: "Climate change is affecting the hydrological system of Northern India ... ". The last thing he needed was his country's own environment ministry debunking the very idea that climate change was a significant problem.

Fortunately for Dr Pachauri, the notoriously opaque European Union had not published the "inconvenient fact" of his involvement on its website, so the good doctor got away with it at the time. But for the local Indian newspaper, The Hindu, we would never have known.

Even then, the newspaper was unconscious of the further irony in its own report, quoting Daniele Smadja, the EU commission "Ambassador" to India, telling us that, "The EU and India enjoy strategic cooperation in the field of science and technology, with co-investment of resources from both players," adding: "This project in the field of climate change, research and glaciology takes this well-established partnership to new heights."

New heights? Did she mean new depths?

PACHAURI THREAD

Conflict of interest

The Viscount Monckton takes Dr Pachauri apart, in long, bleeding strips – analysing his performance at the slugfest at Copenhagen. A report is over on WUWT, detailing the basic errors and unsupported assertions made by Pachauri in his presentation. The presentation is to be commended for its brevity and clarity, easy for the layman to follow.

Monckton, with Australian Senator Steve Fielding, then follows through with an open letter to Pachauri, drawing attention, in some detail, to his conflicts of interests - some of which may be familiar - arising from his extra-mural activities.

On the basis of these very substantial conflicts - which are quite staggering for a supposedly impartial public servant (which is what UN officials should be), the pair write:

We have looked for your declaration of these interests in the documents of the IPCC, particularly in its 2007 Fourth Assessment Report, but we have not found them.

Our conclusion is that you have numerous substantial direct or indirect vested financial and commercial interests profiting from the emissions reduction processes that the documents produced by the IPCC under your chairmanship have triggered.

Given the mistakes that the IPCC have made, they conclude, "and given your numerous and direct conflicts of interest that have, in our opinion, been insufficiently disclosed," they have copied their letter to the delegations of the states parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change with a request that he be "stripped of office forthwith."

PACHAURI THREAD

A vast nexus of influence

No one but the utterly naïve greenies believe that the Mann-made global warming hype is anything to do with climate – much less saving the planet. It is, as always, about power, influence - and money.

Out of literally thin air, the money-men have been able to conjure up a brand new product on which to increase their riches, the fabulous "carbon" which in less than a decade will – they hope – underpin an "industry" worth more than $2 trillion a year.

That alone justified the enormous effort which is being made to cement global warming as an issue in the public consciousness and, more importantly, in the legislative systems of the world. And it is the latter which is most important. Once the elimination of "carbon" is locked into enough legislative systems, it does not matter what people think – the revenue stream will be secure.

Bearing in mind that the issue is based on the central deception that the life-giving gas carbon dioxide is a "pollutant", behind the push to create this multi-trillion dollar industry is a vast nexus of influence, at or near the heart of which – it is emerging – is the chairman of the UN's IPCC, Dr Rajendra Kumar Pachauri.

Carefully cultivating the image of the concerned "scientist", he has on the back of the global warming hype not only been able to amass a considerable personal fortune (about which he is extraordinarily shy) but has also built a powerful global organisation under the brand-name "TERI", as the front for his lobbying and power-broking activities.

And, as one might expect, part of the Pachauri empire is a branch office in Washington DC, based at 1101 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, within sight of the Capitol. Called TERI-NA (The Energy and Resources Institute, North America), it was set up as a "501(c)(3) company" (non-profit) in 1990, it is not even very discrete in its objectives, telling us that:

Its activities have centred around conducting research and organizing workshops/conferences to sensitize the decision-makers in North America to developing countries' concern about energy and environment.

With Dr Pachauri as its president, it is being headed by a United Nations official, supposedly an impartial public servant, in charge of advising government on climate change. What is stunning, therefore, is to see the number of oganisations which are paying fees (sponsorship) to Pachauri's Washington operation.

US readers, for instance, might be intrigued to learn that their tax dollars take a four-way hit. No less than four US government agencies pay into Pachauri's pot, the US Agency for International Development, the US Department of Energy and US Environment Protection Agency. plus the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, a US Department of Energy National Laboratory, which also pays a contribution.

They are joined by the Norwegian Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency. We also have the World Bank and the World Bank Institute listed.

Indirectly, US taxpayers take another hit, being the major bankrollers of the United Nations. Four UN agencies contribute to the pot: the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Development Programme (GEF), the United Nations Office for Project Services and (strangely) the United Nations, Procurement Division, Missions and Project Procurement Service (MPPS).

Given Pachauri's background, it is no surprise to find Big Oil represented, with Amoco Oil and Oman Oil listed amongst his sponsors. Then there is an outfit called FACTS Inc, described as "leading consultants in global energy". They, no doubt, sit easily with the giant defence contractor Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation and Science Applications International Corporation, the ninth largest defence contractor in the United States.

Then there is the company specialising in pesticides and GM crops, Monsanto Enterprises Limited, plus Zuari Agro Chemicals Limited. It was incorporated in 1967 in financial and technical collaboration with the US Steel Corporation to manufacture urea. In 1973, Zuari Agro Chemicals Limited set up Goa's first mega industrial undertaking.

This collection though, surely represents a greenie nightmare, which makes it all the more surprising to see the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) on the sponsor list.

Another interesting sponsor, the Econergy International Corporation. Founded as a consultancy firm in 1994, Econergy became a world leader in Carbon Credit generation, the General Manager of a $20 million clean energy investment fund in Latin America, and through its public listing on AIM (a market operated by the London Stock Exchange), an investor and project developer in clean energy projects in Latin America, the Caribbean (LAC) and other emerging economies.

In the same line of business, we also have GCSI Global - Global Change Strategies International - which has been taken over by Natsource Asset Management Services. This operation calls itself "a leader in the rapidly growing environmental markets, with a focus on the carbon market." It has approximately $800 million in assets under management and commitments and attempts to assist its industrial clients reduce the cost of complying with emissions targets and provide superior returns to its investment clients.

Conflicts of interest anyone?

Then we have organisations pushing renewables, including the Pembina Institute of Appropriate Development, and the International Development & Energy Associates, a Swiss-based organisation which has a remarkably low internet profile. And we also have ICF International. This calls itself a "global professional services firm, partners with government and commercial clients to deliver consulting services and technology solutions in energy, climate change, environment, transportation, social programs, health, defense, and emergency management."

Another interesting sponsor is SNC Lavalin, a company with a distinctly unsavoury past, having been involved in fixing power construction contracts in India.

Alongside such stars, of course, we have the great and the good, such as the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Foundation America, The Rockefeller Foundation (on which advisory Board Pachauri sits), the John D and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Ford Foundation.

Needless to say, there is then a whole raft of greenie and quasi-greenie organisations, such as the Alliance to Save Energy co-chaired by James E. Rogers, President and Chief Executive Officer of Duke Energy, and the Global Environment Facility, chaired by Mrs Monique Barbut, formerly Director of the Division of Technology, Industry and Economics of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

There is also money from the Burns and Roe Services Corporation, Charities Aid, the East-West Centre, the Environmental Law Institute, the Global Development Network, the Health Effects Institute, the International Development Research Centre and the International Institute for Sustainable Development plus the International START Secretariat.

So it goes on. We have the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility and an outfit called Resources For the Future which aims to improve "environmental and natural resource policymaking worldwide through objective social science research of the highest caliber." The list of its board of directors makes interesting reading.

Also counted as sponsors are the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the SARI/Energy Small Grants Program, START (System for Analysis Research and Training) and the United States-Asia Environmental Partnership. American universities are also represented, with the University of California at Davis, the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and the University of Waterloo in the line-up.

The list finishes with the World Resources Institute, whose strategic director is William D. Ruckelshaus, a former administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the V Kann Rasmussen Foundation, Energy Foundation, which has "emphasized environmental grantmaking since it was founded in 1991."

No one, it seems, can accuse Dr Pachauri of not having any friends and supporters. But, standing at the centre of this vast nexus of influence, he makes for some strange bedfellows, all apparently with a common cause.

PACHAURI THREAD

A busy man

Seek and ye will find, as Bishop Hill notes. Our friendly part-time chairman of the IPCC, Dr Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, is quite a remarkable man. As well as his onerous post with the UN's IPCC, it seems he has a considerable number of other interests.

Dr Pachauri's main day job is, of course, Director-General of The Energy Research Institute (TERI) - which he has held since April 2001, having become its Director and head in 1981 when it was the Tata Energy Research Institute.

Intriguingly, for such an upstanding public servant though, he is also a strategic advisor to the private equity investment firm Pegasus Capital Advisors LP, which he became in February of this year. However, this is by no means Dr Pachauri's only foray into the world of finance. In December 2007, be became a member of the Senior Advisory Board of Siderian ventures based in San Francisco.

This is a venture capital business owned by the Dutch multinational business incubator and operator in sustainable technology, Tendris Holding, itself part-owned by electronics giant Philips. It acquired a minority interest in January 2009 in order to "explore new business opportunities in the area of sustainability." As a member of the Senior Advisory Board of Siderian, Dr Pachauri is expected to provide the Fund and its portfolio companies "with access, standing and industry exposure at the highest level."

In June 2008, Dr Pachauri became a member of the Board of the Nordic bank Glitnir, which that year launched the The Sustainable Future Fund, Iceland, a new savings account "designed to help the environment." Then, the fund was expected to accumulate up to €4 billion within a few years, thus becoming one of the largest private funds supporting research into sustainable development. That same month of June 2008, Dr Pachauri also became Chairman of the Indochina Sustainable Infrastructure Fund. Under its CEO Rick Mayo Smith, it was looking to raise at least $100 billion from the private sector.

The previous April 2008 was also a busy month. Dr Pachauri joined the Board of the Credit Suisse Research Institute, Zurich and became a member of the Advisory Group for the Rockefeller Foundation, USA. Then, in May he became a member of the Board of the International Risk Governance Council in Geneva. This, despite its name, is primarily concerned with the promotion of bioenergy, drawing funding from electricity giants EON and EDF. But, not content with that, Dr Pachauri also became Chairman and Member of the Advisory Group at the Asian Development Bank that May. At some time, he also became a Member of the Climate Change Advisory Board of Deutsche Bank AG.

Dr Pachauri also keeps some ties with his roots. In his capacity as a former railway engineer, he is a member of the Policy Advisory Panel for the French national railway system, SNCF and has been since April 2007. Long before that, Dr Pachauri became the President of the Asian Energy Institute, a position he took on in 1992.

One of his most interesting - and possibly contentious - positions, however, is his previous directorship with and current post as "scientific advisor" to GloriOil Limited. This is a company he set up himself in late 2005 - two years after he had become chairman of the IPCC. He is described as its "founder". It was set up in Houston, Texas, to exploit patented processes developed by TERI - of which Pachauri is Director-General - known as "microbial enhanced oil recovery" (MEOR), designed to improve the production of mature oilfields. It now has annual revenues of $2.5 to 5 million.

A few eyebrows were raised in June 2007 when Kleiner Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm that preaches the need to invest in green technologies and reduce global warming, invested in GloriOil.

The firm had joined with TERI - Dr Pachauri's employer - and private equity investor GTI to invest $10 million in the company. Yet Kleiner's leading partner John Doerr had led a crusade to "stop the damage caused by global warming" and had publicly broken down in tears over the issue (see video below).



Investing in oil exploration, it was observed at the time, makes it possible to drill oil more efficiently, and produce greenhouse emissions in even greater amounts, and stands in contradiction to the firm's stated public mission. No one mentioned Dr Pachauri's founding role in the company – or that he was currently chairman of the IPCC.

Interestingly, Doerr had first met Pachauri (along with Gore) at the San Francisco Four Seasons in May 2006, at a meeting of 50 environmental "thought leaders" organised by Kleiner so that the partners could "brainstorm with them about opportunities." A year later, Doerr was investing in Pachauri's company.

Like Doerr, running with the hare and the hounds, Pachauri also serves as Director of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Japan. And, crucially, he is a Member of the External Advisory Board of Chicago Climate Exchange, Inc. This exchange is North America's only cap and trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects world-wide, brokering carbon credits.

Yet Dr Pachauri is also a member of FEOP (Far East Oil Price) Advisory Board, managed by the Oil Trade Associates, Singapore, from April 1997 onwards. This is part of the so-called ForwardMarketCurve - a "ground breaking, all-broker methodology for achieving robust and accurate price discovery in forward commodity markets" - especially, as the name would imply, oil and petroleum products.

Very much in an allied field, he served as a Member of the International Advisory Board of Toyota Motors until 31 March 2009.

That cleared the way, presumably, for an announcement in March 2009, when Pachauri also accepted a post as head of the Yale Climate and Energy Institute (YCEI). We were told than Pachauri has chaired the IPCC since 2002 and has been director general of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) since 2001. "He will retain these positions while taking up his new half-time position at Yale," said the university. Er?

Still, this will make a change from his illustrious past. From 1989 to 1990, he served as Chairman of the International Association for Energy Economics. He served as an Independent Director of NTPC Ltd (National Thermal Power Corp), from 30 January 2006 to January 2009. This is the largest power generation company in India. Before that, he served as non-official Part-time Director of NTPC Ltd, from August 2002 to August 2005. He was also a Director of the Indian Oil Corporation - India's largest commercial enterprise - until 28 August 2003. Dr Pachauri then served as a Director of Gail India Ltd, India's largest natural gas transportation company, from August 2003 to 26 October 2004.

However, Dr Pachauri currently serves as Member of National Environmental Council, Government of India under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister of India. He also serves as a member of the lobbying organisations, the International Solar Energy Society, the World Resources Institute and the World Energy Council. He has been member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India since July 2001 and also serves as Member of the Oil Industry Restructuring Group, for the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India.

Dr Pachauri also served as Director of Consulting and Applied Research Division at the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad. He served as Visiting Professor, Resource Economics at the College of Mineral and Energy Resources, West Virginia University. He was also a Senior Visiting Fellow of Resource Systems Institute, East - West Center, USA. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at The World Bank, Washington, DC and McCluskey Fellow at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University.

One wonders how he finds the time to save the planet. James Delingpole wonders too.

PACHAURI THREAD