UN climate panel blunders again - by Richard... Saturday, January 23, 2010

UN climate panel blunders again - by Richard... Saturday, January 23, 2010

So writes Jonathan Leake, picking up the latest developments on "Glaciergate", storming in with the charge, "The chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has used bogus claims (as highlighted by Leake lest week) that Himalayan glaciers were melting to win grants worth hundreds of thousands of pounds."

You don't get much stronger than that, as Leake tells us: "Rajendra Pachauri's Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), based in New Delhi, was awarded up to £310,000 by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the lion's share of a £2.5m EU grant funded by European taxpayers."

This means, says Leake, that EU taxpayers are funding research into a scientific claim about glaciers that any ice researcher should immediately recognise as bogus. The revelation comes just a week after The Sunday Times highlighted serious scientific flaws in the IPCC's 2007 benchmark report on the likely impacts of global warming.

The IPCC had warned that climate change was likely to melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 - an idea considered ludicrous by most glaciologists. Last week a humbled IPCC retracted that claim and corrected its report. Since then, however, The Sunday Times has discovered that the same bogus claim has been cited in grant applications for TERI.

To be fair, Leake did actually spot the powerpoint presentation illustrated in our earlier piece and on Watts up with that?. That really is the "smoking gun" as far as the EU funding goes.

From the belly of the beast, we find that the EU launched a research project on the back of the IPPC's glacier claims, only to award a goodly amount of money to Pachauri and, via him, Dr Hasnain, the man he now employs, who was responsible for the false claim in the first place.

That said, we get a link to this blog on the sidebar of the story, but under the heading "how bloggers helped break the story", which is stretching it a bit – but it is probably about as far as the MSM can go in acknowledging the "new media".

The main thing though is that both The Sunday Telegraph and now The Sunday Times have done the story. Pachauri will find this very difficult to ignore. My guess is that he is unlikely to survive this combined assault.

For EU Referendum readers, the rest of the story will be pretty familiar, although Leake puts it in focus, observing that: "Any suggestion that TERI has repeated an unchecked scientific claim without checking it, in order to win grants, could prove hugely embarrassing for Pachauri and the IPCC."

He (Leake) also picks up on the Mail Today story in the Indian press, reporting that in India questions are also being asked about Pachauri's links with GloriOil, a Houston, Texas-based oil technology company that specialises in recovering extra oil from declining oil fields. Pachauri is listed as a founder and scientific advisor. Critics, writes Leake, say it is odd for a man committed to decarbonising energy supplies to be linked to an oil company.

Thus, concludes Leake, "problems come at a bad time for the IPCC which is recruiting scientists for its fifth report into the science and impacts underlying global warming."

Yesterday, of course, Pachauri said he intended to remain as director of the IPCC to oversee the fifth IPCC assessment report dealing with sea level rise and ice sheets, oceans, clouds and carbon accounting.

Amazingly, during the press conference yesterday, Pachauri asserted that his response to the "error" in the IPCC report means that the IPCC's credibility has increased. I give him, a week.

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Pachauri: the real story ... - by Richard...

Booker reports in his column "a further dramatic twist to what has inevitably been dubbed 'Glaciergate'".

Partly rehearsed in our previous story, Booker thus brings to a wider audience the remarkable tale of Dr Pachauri who has distanced himself from the IPCC's baseless claim about vanishing glaciers yet is now employing the very man who made those claims.

The piece serves, therefore, as an admirable summary of the multiple posts we have written on the issue, including a reminder that this issue is far more important globally than is indicated by the coverage in the Western media.

To understand why the future of Himalayan glaciers should arouse such peculiar passion, Booker writes, one must recall why they have long been a central icon in global warming campaigners' propaganda. Everything that polar bears have been to the West, the ice of the Himalayas has been – and more – to the East.

This is because, as Mr Gore emphasised in his Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth, the vast Himalayan ice sheet feeds seven of the world's major river systems, thus helping to provide water to 40 percent of the world's population.

The IPCC's shock prediction in its 2007 report that the likelihood of the glaciers "disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high" thus had huge impact in India and other Asian countries, and it is precisely this statement that the IPCC has now been forced to disown.

Booker also reminds us that last November, Dr Raina, the country's most senior glaciologist, published a report for the Indian government showing that the rate of retreat of Himalayan glaciers had not increased in the past 50 years and that the IPCC's predictions were recklessly alarmist.

He recalls that this provoked the furious reaction from Dr Pachauri that tarred Dr Raina's report as "arrogant" and "voodoo science". Only weeks later came the devastating revelation that the IPCC's own prediction had no scientific foundation.

It was not until last week, when The Sunday Times put the issue firmly in the public domain that RK Pachauri finally began to acknowledge that there was a problem with his IPCC report. But, in typical style, he chose to disown his own report, saying that the offending paragraphs were "the work of independent authors" They're responsible, he said – he had "absolutely no responsibility" for the blunder.

But, now that Pachauri has suffered the humiliation of having to admit that his report was wrong all along, we see revealed the part played in this fiasco by a senior member of his own TERI staff. It appears, concludes Booker, that what we may soon be looking at here is not just "Glaciergate" but "Pachaurigate".

More on Watts up with that?

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Pauchauri: EU caught by "glaciergate" hype - by Richard...

Both The Sunday Telegraph (Booker column) and The Sunday Times reveal that the IPCC was not the only organisation caught out by Dr Hasnain's spurious claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. The EU fell for it as well, without checking its scientific authenticity.

Driven by this claim, officials from the EU's multi-billion euro "Framework 7" research programme were so alarmed at the prospect of a rapid glacial melt that they decided to "call for proposals" in the area of Himalayan glaciers retreat, describing the proposed project as "a topic of high scientific and societal importance!"

This was revealed at a seminar on 13 May 2009 when Anastasios Kentarchos, a senior official from the EU commission's Environment Directorate, DG – Research - made a presentation (see frame pictured above) , which refers to Dr Pachauri's fourth assessment report for the IPCC, specifically citing the 2035 date.

The presentation was given during the opening session of an Open Science Seminar (pictured below) organised to discuss the "Future of Water Resources in India under a Changing Climate".


At the seminar, which was hosted by R K Pachauri's institute, TERI, and held in its New Delhi office location, Pachauri was also a keynote speaker and Dr Syed Hasnain was also believed to be present. The seminar was intended to kick-off the EU funded High Noon project aimed at researching the effects of the glaciers melting.

Nor was this the first time Dr Hasnain's claim has been adopted by the EU. In its "State of the Art" webpage introducing the "High Noon" project, it references the same 2005 WWF document used in the IPPC forth assessment report. The webpage notes, in respect of the glacier melt, that: "Reviews from the region suggest that the timescales are short, may be the 2040s... ", citing: "World Wildlife Fund 2005".

Six days after Anastasios Kentarchos's presentation, the EU formally announced - again in New Delhi – the start of the €3 million project, revealing that TERI was to be a beneficiary of the funding.

This may not have come as a surprise to Dr Pachauri. A resident at 160 Golf Links, in New Delhi's "millionaires' row", the office of the EU commission in Delhi is situated at 65 Golf Links – making them practically next door neighbours.

At the time of the announcement and for nearly two years, Dr Hasnain – the originator of the 2035 claim – had been working for Dr Pachauri and was to lead the TERI glaciology unit implementing the EU-funded research.

TERI had already been awarded a major part of a $500,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, also to research the effects of melting glaciers, although this was not to be formally announced until 15 January this year.

As with the EU project, reference was made to Dr Hasnain's claim, with the grant award citation reading: "One authoritative study reported that most of the glaciers in the region “will vanish within forty years as a result of global warming…resulting in widespread water shortages." Again, as with the EU project, Dr Hasnain was to lead the research programme.

The issue of Pachauri using IPPC claims as a means of attracting funding to investigate melting glaciers was first raised by this blog on 17 December, his financial interest largely explaining his hostile reaction to criticism of Dr Hasnain's claim retailed by his own report.

Since the extent of the funding has become clearer, and the link with Hasnain have fully emerged, the response from both Pachauri and Hasnain has been denial and contradiction.

Now, with two heavyweight newspapers pitching in, the pair may find it harder to sustain their denials of what is very clearly documented evidence of conflict of interest and, on Dr Pachauri's part, a misuse of public office. His refusal to resign looks thinner by the minute.

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Decisions, decisions - by Richard...

With the corruption behind "Glaciergate" now being revealed, Bishop Hill picks up on today's Pachauri special, with the great man defying the world and declaring that he will not resign.

In a discussion with an Indian journalist, this afternoon, I recommended that R K spent a little time watching video clips from presidents Nixon and Clinton – to give him a feel of how denying the undeniable rarely leads to success (unless your name is Chirac, of course).

Somewhat reinforcing that observation, The Australian retails the views of Fred Pearce saying that the stakes are now dangerously high for Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC.

"People who want to undermine the science on climate change will be crawling over the report looking for another mistake like this," ha says, "and if they do find another one it will be curtains for Pachauri." Pearce adds: "The way he has handled this glacier issue means he's now a sitting duck if anything else turns up."

Geoffrey Lean shares the sense of crisis, observing that "this now worsening fiasco is much more serious that the much-hyped so-called Climategate row". It reveals, says Lean, "enormous sloppiness in the handling of scientific data by, the IPCC whose authority rests on a meticulous and conservative approach to the science."

Gradually, Pachauri's friends and supporters are peeling away. The only real decision now facing the man is whether to jump now or wait until he is pushed. After tomorrow's rash of stories, even he might decide on the former.

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Inconvenient truth - by Richard...

The Indian Mail Today again takes up the Pachauri story, under the heading: "Inconvenient truth about Pachauri".

Ajmer Singh, who wrote the earlier piece on "conflict of interest", this time covers some more of Pachauri's commercial interests – his involvement in the Houston oil technology firm GloriOil and the proposed India Climate Exchange (ICX).

With GloriOil, the irony, writes Ajmer, is that the head of an outfit devoted to climate change is promoting the enhanced recovery of a fossil fuel the use of which has, according to IPCC, led to global warming. Equally remarkable, he adds, is the fact that the chair of IPCC, which is advocating emissions trading along with other mitigation strategies, is himself involved in a commercial trading exchange involving carbon credits.

In other words, Pachauri as the climate czar first recommends certain policies for mitigating global warming. He then gets involved with a commercial entity — a climate exchange (akin to a stock exchange) — which benefits from the adoption of those policies by governments.

Some of the murky tale of GloriOil is told here but Ajmer adds to the details, noting that the company — of which Pachauri is listed as a founder and scientific advisor —provides enhanced oil recovery technology to more than 100 oil wells in Texas.

Dr Pachaur's Indian commercial venture, TERI Biotech, often claims that it was the pioneer in this field but here we are told that the technology was originally developed by India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

This comes from R V Marathe, director of the Institute of Reservoir Studies (IRS), an ONGC research laboratory at Ahmedabad. He confirms that MEOR technology was ONGC's concept, stating: "The technology was developed by using ONGC's own infrastructure. Later on, we had collaborated with TERI."

However, Dr Lal, director of TERI's Environmental and Industrial Biotechnology Division, claims that the technology used in the US reservoirs has been "customised" but, bizarrely, when asked about TERI's commercial ambitions and ventures, his response was: "I don't know, ask the government."

Here, though, the story gets even murkier as Ajmer reveals that the technology, which GloriOil was licensed to use, was given to it at what amounted to the knockdown price of £50,000 while the charge for implementation and field trials had only been just over £100,000. Given that TERI have been paid just over £4 million by ONGC for what amounted to extended field trials of the technology, GloriOil seems to have benefitted from an extremely generous deal.

Much more has yet to come out about Dr Pachauri's raft of commercial ventures and hisrelationship with Big Oil, but today we have seen another corner of the carpet lifted, and had a quick peek inside. The full story of GloriOil, however, has yet to be told.

Nevertheless, Ajmer turns to what "also appears to be a conflict of interest", as he highlights Pachauri's role as as chairman of IPCC, and his role as an adviser to the Chicago Climate Exchange ( CCX) and the proposed ICX, the first pilot greenhouse gas emissions trading programme in India.

Pachauri's involvement is clear from the CCX website: "To further this goal, an ICX technical design committee and advisory board is being formed. Dr R K. Pachauri has agreed to serve as the advisory board’s honorary chairman."

The global market for carbon trading is estimated to be of the order of £75 billion and, given the potentially huge profits, it is not surprising that the participants who have committed to be part of the ICX technical design committee include leading corporations such as Ford India, Tata Motors, ITC, Reliance Industries, Reliance Power, Tata Power, Indowind Power Suzlon/ Senergy Global, IBM India and Motorola India.

Pachauri, writes Ajmer, has claimed that TERI is not a profit-making organisation, but works for the larger good of the society. However, the fact that he is the head of a key UN panel and has links with a number of commercial organisations and entities, casts a doubt on his claims.

Amjer thus concludes that his critics argue that TERI ought to make public its balance sheet, viz. the money it has earned from various sources, and the details of the manner in which it has been spent. However, the organisation currently publishes its accounts for public consumption only in percentage terms.

Surprisingly – or perhaps not - Pachauri did not respond to repeated queries from newspaper, either by telephone or e-mail. He may find, though, that ducking the hard questions does not make them go away – as he will see in The Sunday Telegraph tomorrow.