This dying creed

With Pachauri in "crow mode" in the Times of India, Booker starts the fight-back in today's Sunday Telegraph. Essentially, what he is saying is that the recently published Inter-Academy report into the IPCC "tiptoes around a mighty elephant in the room", even if it has provoked even some of the more committed believers in man-made global warming to demand the resignation of Pachauri.

The "elephant", of course, is that it is not just Pachauri who is corrupt but the whole of the edifice of the IPCC. This is not a proper scientific body we are dealing with here – any more than Pachauri is a proper climate scientist. It is an advocacy group, ready to stop at nothing in hijacking the prestige of science for its cause.

This, though, you would not have guessed from the Inter-Academy report which means that, even if Pachauri is forced to resign at a UN meeting in Korea next month - as seems possible - he will merely have been thrown off the sledge so that the all-important cause can survive.

Nevertheless, it is unlikely that the cause will survive. Like the EU, it has lost any intellectual or moral authority it ever had. It is only a matter of time, therefore, before the stench from its decomposing corpse, washed up on the beach, becomes so overpowering that even its supporters are forced to take note.

COMMENT THREAD

Declining standards

When push comes to shove, it is totally unacceptable that an official report of the supposed status of the IPCC AR4 should produce work of a quality that would not be acceptable for a PhD thesis. Yet, as we see above, The Daily Telegraph (the egregious Louise Gray) is giving house room to an "Oxford academic" who argues that the poor little darlings who author the next report should not be burdened with "red tape" – when what he is actually complaining about is that they are being asked to stick to the rules that are imposed on PhD students.

It comes to something when Dr Myles Allen does not seem to know the difference between "bureaucracy" and academic rigour, although this is perhaps unsurprising given what is clearly evidence of a long-term decline in academic standards.

Interestingly, and perhaps spurred on by my piece, the Moonbat has come back into play, defending his hero Pachy. But for all his stridency, Moonbat has never even begun to address the issues. He simply relies on the joke report from KPMG to clear his hero.

What he therefore neglects is that Pachy is a man at the head of an international organisation, with offices (and bank accounts) all over the world. In the one instance that we were able to get to his accounts, those of TERI Europe, because they were under UK jurisdiction, we found that they had been falsified. Look at the "before" and now look at the "after" and you will see what I mean.

Given this behaviour from a man that is a proven liar, it would be rather foolhardy to assert on the basis of an extremely limited report, laced with caveats, that Pachauri is "innocent of financial misdealings". Not least, you would have to go through every bank account, in every country, carrying out a forensic audit, before you could be so bold as to make such a statement - if it was true.

But that is precisely what Moonbat does, which says all you need to know about him. He believes what he wants to believes. He then cherry-picks the "evidence" to support his case and ignores the rest. That is why you cannot engage with him and it is not worth arguing with him. He is yet more evidence of the inexorable decline in standards that is poisoning the well of public discourse.

And the worse of it all it that he is so far gone that he does not have the first inkling of quite how off the wall he has become - a pathetic figure worthy only of sympathy. But then, he is in good company - exactly what we would expect of his creed.

COMMENT THREAD

My Goodness

When Geoffrey Lean takes agin Pachy, the world is coming to an end for the old charlatan.

"No fall from grace has been so unforeseen as that of Gore's co-winner, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change," says Lean, making you wonder where he has been all this time.

"Just two years after picking up the prize, the UN organisation – chiefly criticised until then for its caution in interpreting the growing evidence of climate change – was plunged into controversy, after it was found grossly to have exaggerated the rate at which Himalayan glaciers are melting," he adds.

There in the background is Amazongate and Africagate, and all the others - there but unspoken as the commentators freely talk about "errors" in the plural, forgetting how adamant Pachauri has been about there being only one mistake ... in the singular. This "one single error", he kept saying again and again. The others are "not errors", he says. See the video.



Moonbat looks pretty damn stupid with his comments and its interesting how quiet he is now. So, incidentally, does The Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph. If only they had held out a little longer, it would have saved us all a lot of grief.

COMMENT THREAD

Missing the point

Now we have The Financial Times adding its voice to the throng, noting that the time has come for Rajendra Pachauri to move on. But one wearies of the follow-through suggestions that the IPCC "needs stronger leadership to maintain credibility".

The FT thus thinks that a rejuvenated IPCC leadership could tackle the deficiencies in its review process. It says this should become more inclusive, welcoming alternative views where these are scientifically valid, and at the same time more exclusive, rejecting unsubstantiated claims of dramatic change.

But the paper is wholly wrong. The whole point of AR4 is that if you strip out all the unsubstantiated claims, there is no case for the Armageddon scenario that its authors wished to portray.

It was in the absence of such material that they cast around for material that would support their case, whatever the provenance. The senior authors and editors knew exactly what they were doing, people like Martin Parry who were instrumental in setting it up.

Having Pachauri in place to back them up was all part of the grand scheme, and changing the leadership will not change the basis of the project. Of course he should go, but it would be better if he was not replaced and the collective of nations walked away from the IPCC.

The whole thing was based on a lie - is based on a lie. And, whatever leverage Carter Fuck might have been able to exercise on The Sunday Telegraph, the High Court in Delhi branded Pachauri a liar. Nothing will change that - the man is a consummate, practiced, serial liar, and he is head of the IPCC.

The thing about so many of the warmists in this context is that they think I am as stupid as they are. For sure, I make the odd mistake, get confused about some things and get some details wrong. But my underlying research is sound.

Thus, I would be perfectly happy to stand up in court and defend myself ... many people know of my role in the MacDonalds case and I could repeat the whole charade. It would cost them millions and me just my time - I have nothing else to lose.

It matters not whether they rise to the challenge though - they lose either way. The main accusations against Pachauri stand, and I would be seriously foolish if I had not also salted away some additional material, to use at the appropriate time.

And eventually the truth will out. Then there will be some reckoning because this thing has gone too far and cost too much for people simply to walk away and forget that it ever happened.

COMMENT THREAD

Continuing the smears

I suppose Moonbat was right, after a fashion. "Rajendra Pachauri innocent of financial misdealings but smears will continue," he wrote in a particularly idiotic piece which had his warmist claque all a twitter over the vile accusations that Booker and North had made about this saintly figure.

Well, the "smears" have continued, and leading the way is the Moonbat's spiritual home, The Guardian, with a headline "Rajendra Pachauri, head of UN climate change body, under pressure to resign".

The proximate cause of this apparent volte face is the report of the Inter-academy Council (113 pages PDF), helpfully summarised in a much shorter press release.

Nobody expected much from the Council, which has been looking at the IPCC and its procedures. And then head of the Pachauri fan club, the Hindustan Times, told us that "Pachauri escapes indictment". But it then added that the "embattled chief" of the IPCC, "escaped direct indictment in the UN’s review of his panel's assessments, only because he was not up for scrutiny personally."

There was enough in the panel's findings and recommendations, it goes on to say, "to suggest Pachauri runs a bad ship". The IPCC lacks transparency and, worst, "it relies on unsubstantiated scientific claims." Now, we may have made a point or two in that direction and while the Council only specifically mentions the "alarmist meltdown of the Himalayan glaciers" it quite clearly "errors" in the plural.

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The IPCC's slow and inadequate response to revelations of errors in the last assessment, as well as complaints that its leaders have gone beyond IPCC's mandate to be "policy relevant, not policy prescriptive" in their public comments, have made communications a critical issue, the report says. Pachy can no longer play his silly, self-serving games ... he has been exposed for what he is, all in the nicest possible way.

The Daily Mail, however, isn't quite as nice. It interprets the "scathing report" as calling for the IPCC "to avoid politics and stick instead to predictions based on solid science." The probe, it says, "took a thinly-veiled swipe at Rajendra Pachauri."

Watts Up With That has a welcome go, and reprints the NYT comments. This paper, which has had the hots for Rajendera ever since he became chairman, is now stating that the scientists involved in producing the IPCC reports "need to be more open to alternative views and more transparent about their own possible conflicts of interest".

Amusingly, one wonders whether this can apply to Pachauri. The BBC seems to think not. Editorial Complaints Unit has just upheld a complaint about the reference to this Pachauri as "the UN's top climate scientist".

A viewer complained that this was inaccurate and misleading, as Dr Pachauri's scientific qualifications and credentials were in a field unrelated to climate science. This had the ECU agreeing that the implication that he was a climate scientist was "materially misleading".

The Editor of BBC News at 10, we are told, is reiterating to his team "the importance of accuracy in the introduction of our contributors." But then, I suppose, to suggest that Pachy isn't a climate scientist is just another of those "smears" about which the Moonbat was so rightly concerned.

But more smears are on their way, it seems. Korea in October is the place and time. We may see the back of the old charlatan then.

COMMENT THREAD

A non-apology

Readers of The Sunday Telegraph (hard copy and online) may be surprised to see what appears to be an apology in the current edition, relating to Rajendra Pachauri (illustrated above).

As far as the paper goes, however, it is actually a non-apology – as a careful study of the words will reveal to anyone with a modicum of intelligence (a dwindling band, one fears).

The text starts off by saying that we (i.e., The Sunday Telegraph) published an article about Pachauri and his business interests – as written by Booker and myself. Needless to say, the article was sound, all the substantive facts are correct and the paper stands by them.

However, this is not the name of the game. Pachauri wants an "apology", in so many words. The detail is irrelevant. All he wants is something he can tout around to his friends and supportive media, which he can project as a retraction.

Using the biggest crooks in the libel business, known to Private Eye readers as Carter Fuck, Pachauri has done a "no-win, no-fee" deal which, with a special insurance scheme introduced under the last administration, enables these sharks to go to law and stack up colossal fees. Recently, they represented a minor celebrity in a libel case, gaining £15,000 in damages – for which they then charged £350,000 costs.

The difficulty facing the paper is that, when having to deal with an unethical law firm which has been given a writ to stack up open-ended costs, going to law to fight even a good case can be perilous and expensive. Even a win stands to cost several hundred thousand pounds, in your own costs. If you lose, the costs can run to millions.

Faced with this blackmail, it is easier for the newspapers to give a "non-apology" and cut their losses. So far, Carter Fuck have stacked up £100,000 in costs and are seeking recovery from the paper. No damages have been claimed or offered, so the only financial beneficiaries are the lawyers

Now look at the "non-apology". The paper says: "It was not intended to suggest that Dr Pachauri was corrupt or abusing his position as head of the IPCC". That is true ... so true that the paper did not actually suggest that Pachauri "was corrupt or abusing his position as head of the IPCC".

Booker and I might have intended to do so, and I certainly did on this blog – and more. I called the man a liar, and stand by that. But we are not the paper. And it is the paper that is taking the rap as the publisher. It "legalled" the piece and it was libel-proof, so much so that Carter Fuck has not sustained any of Pachauri's original complaint – dismissed as a "rant".

Nevertheless, these gold-diggers keep coming back, and back and back, each time stacking up the costs. To get rid of them, the paper can say that it "did not intend ... ", etc., without any problem. It neither intended nor did so in fact. It can also say, without a problem, that: "we accept KPMG found Dr Pachauri had not made 'millions of dollars' in recent years."

The paper can do so because KPMG "finding" that "Dr Pachauri had not made 'millions of dollars'" is a matter of fact. KPMG did so find. If you wish too believe that means Pachauri didn't make millions of dollars, that is your affair. But the crucial thing is that the paper has not apologised for accusing Pachauri of making millions of dollars. That accusation stands uncorrected. The paper simply accepts that KPMG has a claims in this respect.

So, the paper ends up making two statements of fact, on which basis it then "apologises" to Pachauri "for any embarrassment caused," an anodyne phrasing that does not even admit to having caused any embarrassment. This is pure, meaningless bullshit.

But the game is to play. Already the Pauchauri-supporting Hindustani Times has made its play. Thus you can see how the game actually works. And this sort of thing will go on for as long as the papers allow it – rolling over instead of fighting. If the papers got together and demanded a change of law, they would probably get it. This might even happen, as patience is running out.

In the meantime, Pachauri, his claque and the warmist fellow-travellers will be making hay. But if that is what they need to do to "prove" their case and protect their man, it tells you all you need to know about them. My only regret is that the lawyers are claiming about two hundred times more for stitching up the paper than I was paid for the piece. That should also tell you something.

COMMENT THREAD

They've been on a rampage

There's no getting away from the fact that those who are deniers of climate change have been lying in wait, having been organising themselves, and the moment this opportunity arose they've decided to strike and since then they've been on a rampage.

See the rest here.

COMMENT THREAD - CLIMATE CHANGE

Millions for IPCC chairman Pachauri

Over £11 million of British taxpayers' cash has been paid or pledged to Dr Rajendra Pachauri's institute, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), while he has been chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This comprises over £1 million in direct payments over the last five years and £10 million to come from DFID over the next five.

Direct cash payments have been made by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which has given Dr Pachauri's TERI £441,000. £134,000 came from DEFRA and £269,000 from DFID – totalling £844,000.

In addition, TERI shared £167,000 with Sussex University for a project funded by DECC and another £73,000 for the same project, funded by DEFRA, plus it shared in a £4 million research initiative funded by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Although the exact amounts paid to TERI in the shared projects are not specified, the institute was a major partner in the £240,000 Sussex University-led projects which, with the EPSRC money, would bring the overall total received to more than £1 million in cash already paid in the last five years.

The details emerged from a parliamentary question asked by Ann Winterton MP. She was told that the direct payments to TERI included £120,000 for developing an energy security policy for India and £76,000 for the design of renewable energy credit system for India. These were funded by the FCO.

Defra funded three conferences jointly organised by TERI in its luxurious New Delhi offices (pictured), spending £46,000 to cover forests and climate change and £88,000 on three "summits" on sustainable development. DFID supported two more sustainable development conferences, paying TERI £71,000 in 2008 and 2009. The 2008 conference received £31,000 but this was also supported by the Rockefeller Foundation, which paid $200,000 towards the costs as well.

It also emerged that the British government paid £14.5 million in the last five years to the Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEP), of which TERI is the Asian representative, supplying office space in its own Delhi headquarters and the secretariat.

REEP also acts as a "funding vehicle", supporting research projects undertaken by its members, with an average value of €100,000. TERI has worked on at least two of these in the last five years.

The £11 million of British funding is in addition to the share of €56 million for participation in 17 EU-funded projects (partly paid by the UK), €7.5 million pledged by the Norwegian government, nearly €1 million paid or pledged by the Finnish government, and $1 million pledged by the Australian government.

Other funders include institutions such as the World Bank and commercial companies, such as the oil company BP, which is funding a $9.4 million project to grow Jatropha for biofuel in three districts of Andhra Pradesh. Additionally, Pachauri himself is estimated to earn about $800,000 annually in direct fees for his services, which he claims are paid to his institute.

Having started with a £500,000 grant from Tata in 1974, TERI is one of the largest indigenous Indian NGOs, with assets estimated to be worth £40 million. The British taxpayer can be proud that it has helped in a small way to make Dr Pachauri's institute such a success.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

Euros for Rajendra

Since taking the chair of the IPCC in 2002, Rajendra Pachauri's own personal research institute, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), has enjoyed a multi-million-euro bonanza from EU-funded research projects.

Having led the institute from 1982, in the 20 years before he assumed the IPCC chair, only four EU projects had been awarded. Since then, the institute in seven years has shared in 19 projects worth over €58 million. For many of them, TERI had no obvious expertise or physical presence.

The rush of EU funding to Pachauri's institute – which insiders speak of producing "low quality research" – invites suspicion that the EU is seeking to influence the IPPC chair in favour of the European climate change agenda, ensuring he pulls his punches when it comes to supporting developing countries, including his native India, while wrong-footing the United States.

Pachauri, on the other hand – in so readily accepting millions of euros from the EU for his institute - lays himself open to the accusation of being a pawn of the Europeans, concerned more with promoting his own financial interests than impartially representing the international community.

On the face of it, the facts are damning. Virtually unknown in the West until he became IPCC chair, Dr Rajendra Pachauri's ascension to his elevated position marked a turning point in the fortunes of the institute which he headed as director general.

Before he became chair, TERI's pickings had been thin. Between November 1996 and February 2001, the EU supported another of his enterprises, the Asian Energy Institute, to an unknown amount, but the first recorded grant to TERI was in December 1998. It had participated in a four-year project called COASTIN on "Measuring, monitoring and managing sustainability - the coastal dimension".

That was managed through an office in Goa rather from the New Delhi corporate offices and it was not until May 2000, after Pachauri had been elected co-chair of the IPCC, that another tranche of EU money was awarded to his institute, PRO-CET, a grant of €125,000 towards the €786,830 needed to host an "OPET-Associate" for the Indian sub-continent and the ASEAN region.

This was part of an EU commission initiative called the OPET Network - Organisations for the Promotion of Energy Technologies (OPET) – for which the commission had ambitions of turning into a world-wide network. The funding was only for a year.

Pachauri becomes IPCC chair

On 19 April 2002, Pachauri was elected chair of the IPCC and, in July 2002, his institute started a project in the Gurgaon district of Haryana – to the southwest of Delhi, conveniently centred on the TERI Retreat which now boasts a nine-hole golf course, cricket grounds and a badminton green.

The project was part of the EU's long-running ASIA-URBS programme, taking the institute's involvement through to May 2004. It was aimed at "improving urban environment through the introduction of sustainability measures in building design", TERI sharing €127,332.50 with its local government partner.

The next project was not so long in coming. Named INTEREST, this was worth €650.000 split between six partners, starting on 1 February 2002 and lasting until 31 January 2005 The objective was to "generate tools to support improved ecosystem management for sustainability."

In October 2002, TERI then started on PERIURBAN, a study of, "Sustainable settlements in peri-urban areas: with special reference to impacts of transport and energy on natural resources management". With €687,998 shared between six partners, this was the largest yet.

An invitation to Brussels

Reflecting his new status as IPCC chair, on 12 November 2002, Pachauri was invited to attend as a panel member a symposium in Brussels on "The International Dimension of the European Research Area". He was the only Indian representative present and indentified as head of TERI.

In April 2003, the commission injected more funds into its OPET project, paying €893,374 of its €1,636,910 costs, shared between its 18 – mostly European – member organisations. Nothing much seems to have come of the initiative in the hands of TERI. OPET is now represented in the region only in Malaysia.

By June 2003, however, TERI was already sharing with five other partners a €480,155 project called ED-WAVE, developing "a sustainable framework for training in technologies for conservation, reclamation and reuse of natural resources", with special reference to improving water efficiency.

Most of this was though was part of the EU's INCO (International co-operation) programme designed to spread money, albeit thinly, around the developing world.

But not two years after Pachauri had rocketed to the head of the IPCC, his institute joined the mainstream. He was invited to Brussels to speak at s symposium on "EC Global Change Research: International Partnership" alongside research commissioner Philippe Busquin. Organised by the European Commission, this was held at the Academy Palace of Sciences and Arts on 6-7 May 2004. There were to be many more such events.

The money flows

A sign of the changed status came when TERI was nominated as a partner in stage three of an ongoing research project called NEU-CO2. Starting in September 2004 and lasting for two years, TERI's task was to assist in setting up the systems to monitor the manufacture of synthetic materials and chemical products, e.g. plastics, paints, solvents, lubricants and bitumen, as these were considered to contribute substantially to CO2 emissions.

For this endeavour, Pachauri's institute shared in the fairly modest €289,656 pot paid-for by the EU. But greater riches were to come.

The next project for TERI started in March 2005. Called TBT IMPACTS and lasting until February 2009, it was co-ordinated by TERI under the leadership of Dr Sangeeta Sonak, with a budget of €799,841.

The task, from the offices in land-locked New Delhi, included an assessment of current policy concerns and developments with regards to the ban on using organotin compounds in antifouling paints and an assessment of their environmental impacts. The project was also to develop a simple biomonitoring system to regulate TBT impacts and help implementation of legislation.

With that in the bag, between November 2005 to the end of January 2006, TERI was again a project leader, this time under the direction of Ms Ritu Mathur, in GAINS-ASIA. This brought together "state-of-the-art disciplinary models on air pollution and climate change to assess technical and market based policies that maximize synergies and benefits between these policy areas."

The million-euro league

The pot here was a much improved €1,161,102 – the first million-plus project in which TERI has been involved - of which the EU paid €695,000. As project leader, TERI's percentage would have been significant.

Now the big money beckoned. Although a curiously specific European affair, TERI was invited to take part in ADAM a huge project on "Adaptation and Mitigation Strategies: supporting European climate policy."

Starting in March 2006 and running to the end of July 2009, working alongside multiple partners including the University of East Anglia – led by Mike Hulme – TERI took a part-share in the €18,197,000 pot. The EU paid €12,905,000.

This was followed in short order on 1 April 2006 by T@W, a project on the promotion of sustainable energy technology in the emerging Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) markets in EU and CDM markets in Asia. Scheduled to finish in March 2008, the project cost was €1.24 million, with an EU component of €979,516.00.

By now, the EU was taking a keen interest in Dr Pachauri, part-sponsoring (alongside the UK's DFID) a conference in Delhi on "Adaptation to climate variability and change", organised by TERI. Ms. Soledad Blanco, Director International Affairs, European Commission (Directorate General for Environment), gave the "welcome address".

Then, when the EU commission wanted work carried out in Africa, TERI was chosen, despite having no presence on the continent. This was COMPETE, a "Competence Platform on Energy Crop and Agroforestry Systems for Arid and Semi-arid Ecosystems - Africa". The project started in January 2007 and finished at the end of December last year. Its objective was "to stimulate bioenergy implementation in arid and semi-arid regions in Africa." TERI took a share of the €1,497,000 paid by the EU.

Simultaneous projects

Such was the flow of work that, for the first time, Pachuari's institute was in that January starting another EU project simultaneously. This was EUCAARI, due for completion in December this year, at an overall cost of €15,025,634 – for which the EU has budgeted €9,999,627.

Entitled "a European integrated project on aerosol cloud, climate and air quality interactions" this was also – at first sight – a European affair. But it included "key players" from third countries, of which TERI was fortunate to be regarded as one, enabling it to work alongside the University of East Anglia, School of Environmental Sciences, under the leadership of professor Simon Clegg.

Meanwhile, on the 8th and 9th February 2007, as a sign of the closer relationship, the EU commission launched its "1st EU-India Strategic Science and Technology Workshop," on the theme: "Climate change research needs". Conveniently, the event, co-organised by DG-Research, was held at the TERI office location and inaugurated by the Commissioner for Research, Janez Potočnik.

Now fully engaged on the launch of his IPCC report, and then attending to collect the Nobel prize on behalf of the IPCC, Pachauri had less time to devote to EU affairs. Nevertheless, there was time for SHAPES: small hydro action for the promotion of efficient solutions – "facilitating and strengthening the co-operation between EU Small Hydropower (SHP) Research and Market actors". That started on 1 December 2007 and ended on 30 November 2009. The cost was €833,299 and the EU paid €749,969.

The projects roll in

In September 2008, TERI started another project, one called SAFEWIND. A highly technical project ending on 31 August 2012, this involves: "Multi-scale data assimilation, advanced wind modelling and forecasting with emphasis on extreme weather situations for a secure large-scale wind power integration."

TERI is not known for its prowess in "advanced wind modelling" – especially in European scenarios where the project is centred. But that has not stopped it becoming a partner, sharing in the French co-ordinated work which will yield €5,581,859, of which €3,992,400 will be donated by the EU.

Only months later, on 1 January 2009, another major project started, in which TERI was a partner. This was CLIMATECOST ending in August 2011 at a cost of €4.61 million of which the EU was paying €3.5 million. Led by the Oxford Office of the Stockholm Environment Institute, TERI was to contribute to determining the "full costs of climate change".

That coincided with the start of ISSOWAMA - "Integrated Sustainable Solid Waste Management in Asia". Requiring, "Networking and preparatory action in view of developing cost-effective, environmentally-safe waste treatment technologies and services adapted to the needs of developing countries, within a targeted life cycle approach", TERI was to share €1,278,698, the EU providing €989,523 for the 30 month duration of the project.

The University of East Anglia cropped up in yet another EU-funded project in which TERI also partnered. That one was called RESPONSES, dealing with: "European responses to climate change: deep emissions reductions and mainstreaming of mitigation and adaptation." Again a largely European affair funded from the main research budget, it started on an unspecified date in 2009 with TERI sharing a pot of €3,149,708.

.Also starting in 2009, officially on 1 May, was the now notorious HIGHNOON. It had been set up to study "adaptation to changing water resources availability in northern India with Himalayan glacier retreat and changing monsoon pattern". TERI gets a share of €4.28 million, of which €3.31 million is to be paid by the EU.

Then, in September 2009 and ending this coming August, TERI commenced work on SETATWORK, a €1.27 million project with €999,972 of EU funding, aimed at the "thematic promotion of energy efficiency and energy saving technologies in the carbon markets".

Also in September 2009, TERI started its involvement in RISKCYCLE, a project charged with defining future R&D; requirements "in the field of risk-based management of chemicals and products," with a view to using alternative testing strategies to minimise animal tests.

Again, this was not an obvious area of TERI expertise but it nevertheless shares in the three-year project worth €1,206,063 – of which the EU is paying €996,324.

Other Europeans pitich in

Furthermore, support from European countries did not come only via the EU. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland has been funding TERI to carry out projects on Pollution in India, a project that aims to address some of the questions posed by the "brown cloud" phenomenon. Phased payments for 2004-2006 were € 302,000, phase two from 2007-2009 was € 220,000 and phase three from 2010-2012 is planned to spend € 480,000 – amounting to nearly €1 million.

Additionally, the British government in September last year pledged £10 million to TERI – having already funded the institute to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds, while the Norwegian government on 13 November last year signed a 60 million Norwegian Kroners (about €7.5 million) contract with TERI.

For R K Pachauri, whether man-made global warming exists or not, it has proved very profitable indeed for his institute, not least through the "generosity" of the Europeans who seem only too keen to encourage his ambitions.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

How green is my golf course?

"Happiness in life is based on expectations," writes Rajendra K Pachauri on his own blog. And if your expectations include ownership of a nine-hole golf course, then Dr Pachauri must be a very happy man indeed.

The ownership is reported today by the Indian newspaper the Mail Today which tells us that R K Pachauri's "not-for-profit" TERI - imbued with a mission to "work towards global sustainable development, creating innovative solutions for a better tomorrow" – is the proud owner of a water-guzzling nine hole golf course in Gual Pahari on the outskirts of Gurgaon a satellite town to the southwest of New Delhi.

This much is not new. It was described in glowing terms by the Business Standard in February 2007, when we were told of a "beautiful golf course" that precedes the entrance of a "completely different world from the precincts of Gurgaon".

It is part of the "amazingly landscaped 36-hectare TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) campus at Gual Pahari." And nestled inside this campus is an unassuming building called The Retreat, a training and recreation centre for TERI staff and executives.

Furthermore, TERI has made no secret of the facility, noting in its Annual report 2006/7 that the golf course had been created "with the intention of promoting golf amongst TERI personnel residing in Delhi and Gurgaon." It was then that the six-hole golf course was being upgraded into a nine-hole green. A 200-yard driving range was "an added attraction" and there was a nine-hole putting course adjacent to the Retreat building.

But, it appears, TERI is harbouring a guilty "secret". The five-acre golf course is part of the 69 acres of institutional land it acquired from Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) in 1985 (below - Google Earth), for the exclusive use of TERI staff. Commercial exploitation is prohibited.


Yet the paper has found that the golf course has been opened up to selected members of the public who are being charged Rs 25,000 (£350) for membership.

According to Gurgaon's district town planner Vijender Singh Rana, commercial activity through sports on institutional land is illegal. "HUDA gave this land to TERI for institutional or public and semi-public purpose."

Rana said. "Though they have asked for change of land use (CLU) regularly from HUDA, permission cannot be given for any sporting activity. If TERI is selling golf course memberships, it is wrong." Rana said the conditions for use of institutional land were clear. "If TERI uses it for its own purpose, there is no problem. But it cannot use it commercially and sell golf memberships," he said.

Needless to say, a TERI spokesperson denied it was making commercial use of the course, something rather contradicted by this piece written in May 2008, to say nothing of this site which refers to green fees. Then there is another, seemingly bizarre, contradiction which has the state government imposing a tax on golf players, a piece in which the TERI golf course is mentioned.

However, this is confirmed by a Mail Today reporter who anonymously contacted course officials and was offered memberships for £350. Furthermore, Mohinder Singh, an official at the course, told the paper that there was a one year waiting time. "Your form will come for review after a year," he said.

Equally contentious is the water usage to keep the golf course green. As chair of the IPCC, Pachauri is voluble in demanding of governments around the world that they cut down on carbon emissions and save water, among other things, to sustain the environment. He is equally voluble about potential water shortages in his home country, arising from melting glaciers and all that.


TERI claims that water conservation measures on the campus include "an efficient central rainwater harvesting system in accordance with water conservation guidelines such as drip water irrigation, early morning and late evening half circle sprinkling to minimise water evaporation and loss."

But with the golf course and environs requiring up to 300,000 gallons a day during the summer to keep the lush greenery in condition (pictured above), questions are being asked about the sustainability of the facility, which would have difficulty in meeting the volume required solely from harvested water.

This is especially an issue in Delhi, where water shortage is a major a problem, and more so in Gurgaon. As recently as March 2008, local difficulties were causing scarcity of drinking water in the city.

Then reported earlier this month, serious concern has been expressed about the huge gap between supply and demand and the rapidly falling water table, depleted by an estimated 35,000 bore wells, only 9,780 of which are registered.

With many local residents increasingly struggling to cope with a failing water supply, many eyebrows are being raised at the luxuriant scenery which Dr Pachauri's merry men enjoy as they stroll round the greens in between saving the planet and relieving the misery of the poor.

And for those who are not too keen on golf, there is the world class "TERI Oval" cricket green for gentle recreation. Failing that, there is always the badminton green.

But this is not what most people had in mind when they describe Dr Pachauri and his institute as "green".

COMMENT THREAD

The denier

Journalist Sandra León asks Pachauri about the errors in the IPCC's AR4, specially in the Synthesis Report, and the use of WWF and Greenpeace reports. She asks him specifically about the doubling of the Netherlands area under sea level and the claim that by 2020 crop production in North Africa will be down by 50 percent. Pachauri responds as follows:

Well. There are no errors. There is one error which we have acknowledged which was in respect of melting of the Himalayan glaciers.

Let me emphasise that the others are not errors and it is perfectly valid to use non-peer reviewed literature provided we look at the source of information that is contained in that non peer-reviewed literature and make sure that it's authentic.

You must realise that there are some parts of the world where you really don't have published research material. And therefore it's been the practice of the IPCC to use non peer-reviewed literature. With, of course, a lot of caveats and careful authentication of the source of that information.

And, what you're pointing out is really not correct. We have investigated these so-called errors. They're not errors and we are absolutely certain that what we have said over that can be substantiated on the basis of scientific information.

Except for the case that I mentioned, the Himalayan glaciers where it was said the glaciers would melt, would vanish by 2035 and that error we have acknowledged and have put a note on the IPCC website which I would request you to look at carefully.

This man is riding for a fall.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

Pachauri's law

A fine piece of writing from Dipankar Gupta in yesterday's Indian Mail Today. It is on line here or if you click the pic above, it is readable. Says Gupta:

On the other hand, to get an admission from Pachauri is like dragging a pet to the vet. When confronted with the errors, he shifted the blame to his researchers and to the probability theory that with so many facts it's alright to go wrong on a couple.

and ...

What really matters is the emergence of Pachauri's law. It says "good science drives out bad science with the speed of melting ice cream".

Not sure about that last bit – it seems to contradict the headline, which is more to the point. But, overall, there are some delicious barbs, and some serious points, not least that the paranoia over climate change is diverting attention from real pollution.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

New voices

... urge IPCC chief to step down. To Hartmut Grassl, any conflicts of interest, real or perceived, could still undermine the credibility of the panel. The former director of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg told Deutsche Welle that this "mixing of duties makes [Pachauri] vulnerable."

The Discover magazine writer Chris Mooney sees it as a guerrilla war.

... what I and many others failed to anticipate was that a kind of guerilla war on science–and especially climate science–would take its place, driven by blogs like Climate Depot and Watts Up With That. This war springs from the same politics, but it is coming from those who are out in the wilderness, rather than running the government.

As a result, this war hits harder, and is much more personal—aimed at discrediting individual researchers, by sifting through their emails and accusing them of scandalous wrongdoing. And it is draws its momentum from the vast numbers of online commenters who closely follow the climate "scandal" stories and then show up at this blog, and other ones, to leave comments attacking scientists like Mann, and institutions like the IPCC.

After trying to ignore the issue, even Richard Black of the BBC is wobbling. On the back of "Climategate", it's nearly two months since this started and it's showing no signs of abating. I think it's got to the stage where only a blood sacrifice is going to resolve it.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

May I shine your shoes sir?

The BBC interviews Rajendra Pachauri. When it comes to grovelling, the BBC really is world class. It even puts the Indian media to shame.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

The killer blow

Pachauri is on the ropes but he ain't down yet. The view is it will take one more "killer blow" to fell him .. and it looks as if its been found! Under wraps at the moment, for obvious reasons, but all will be revealed.

R K Pachauri needs to be acquainted with the first rule of politics - DFWN ... since it is a family blog, you'll have to work it out for yourselves.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

And the latest version is?

"You might find that difficult to believe, but that's a fact. I just don't know what my salary is." Rajendra Pachauri, interviewed by The Economist.

There's no answer to 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

Carnegie suspended Pachauri grant

Despite Dr Pachauri's claims that his research institution TERI was being funded from a grant of $500,000 from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the money from one of America's leading and oldest charities had already been suspended by the time he announced the grant.

The announcement of the funding was made jointly at a prestigious press conference by Pachauri and the president of Iceland, Dr Ólafur Grímsson on 15 January of this year.

On the day, the TERI press release claimed that, "according to predictions of scientific merit they [the glaciers] may indeed melt away in several decades. This, in turn, will have implications for the entire water system of the sub-continent, with immediate effect on soil, water management, and the possibilities of food production."

"Looking at the unfolding scenario in the mountains and the immediate need for scientific collaboration and research on this issue," the release continued, "[the] University of Iceland in collaboration with The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and the Carnegie Corporation of New York have joined hands to work in the fields of glaciology and soil science."

Although the release claimed that the collaboration, "will be funded primarily by the Carnegie Corporation of New York", the celebrations were a sham as, according to the Indian DNA news agency, no money had been given to either TERI or Grímsson's Global Centre.

This is confirmed by Susan King, vice president for public affairs at the corporation. "In September 2008, we approved a $500,000 grant to the Iceland -based Global Centre towards research on water-related security and humanitarian challenges to South Asia posed by the melting Himalayan glaciers. It was a one-time grant," she said.

"No funds have been paid to the centre as the grantee (the centre) told us not to send it because of political and economic challenges facing Iceland," she added.

No timescale is given by King, but from a separate e-mail sent to us from Carnegie official George Soule, we learn that the grant was suspended shortly after it had been approved, i.e., well before TERI's January launch. The Corporation has not answered queries about whether the grant will be reinstated.

The DNA agency notes that, "Clearly, the US charity's money hasn't been squandered on a Himalayan blunder." King declined to comment, or get dragged into the climate row, the agency says, but did the centre and Carnegie smell a rat? The grant never happened despite being approved in September 2008.

It's terribly odd for a receiver of a grant to turn down generous funding "unless, of course, the centre felt the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report that climate change was likely to melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 was far-fetched," the agency concludes.

However, there is more. On Sunday, we noted that an emergency workshop of glacier experts had been convened on 28 December by UNEP, the sponsoring organisation for the IPCC – specifically to discuss the melting glacier claim.

Then, the considered response was that the claim was unsupported by science and that the IPCC conclusion "may have to be revised". Yet Dr Pachauri, head of the IPCC – who must have known of the conclusion – did nothing until 20 January, three days after it had been raised by The Sunday Times and five days after his TERI press launch.

Had the controversy broken earlier, it would clearly have been embarrassing to Drs Pachauri and Grímsson but was there a more sinister motive? With the Carnegie funds having been suspended, was Pachauri keeping quiet in order to avoid the very controversy he feared might happen – knowing that a major press row might end any chances of reinstatement?

Do we have a cover-up here?

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD

Another day, another (10,000) dollar(s)

The "embattled" Dr Pachuri (as the media are now describing him) has his UN colleagues rallying around him in a desperate attempt to restore something of his tarnished prestige, offering him yet another award.

This one is the 2010 UN-HABITAT Cities Lecture Award. As well as the $10,000 cash prize, a key component is the delivery, by the award winner, of a lecture before a live audience. Dr. Pachauri will present his lecture at 1400 on Tuesday 23rd March at the World Urban Forum, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The award, we are told, is in recognition of Pachauri's "outstanding contribution and leadership in the area of climate change and, in particular, his contribution to knowledge and global action on climate change and cities."

Ostensibly, Pachauri might welcome the $10,000 as a supplement to the meagre £2,600 a month salary which he claims is paid to him by his "research institute", but with this man, what you see is not what you yet.

Curiously, amongst the great accomplishments attributed to Dr Pachauri in the UN-HABITAT press release – in addition to him receiving the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC – is his service as President of the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi 2004-06.

The irony of citing the Habit Centre is almost certainly lost on the award committee as it was Pachari's tenure on the governing council of the centre, during its development, which first exposed him publicly as a consummate and unprincipled liar.

As set out in our earlier post, it was then that judge K Ramamoorthy in the Delhi High Court condemned Pachauri for suppressing material facts and swearing a false affidavit.

There is something of the psychopath in the ease and fluidity with which Pachauri so often lies – which makes him seem to plausible – but it is in that context that his current salary claim must be seen.

Here, one has to note that he refers only to his "research institute", but that is only one of the many enterprises under the TERI brand-name that he heads. Amongst others, there is the commercial company TERI Biotech, which has a 47 percent share in the joint venture company called ONGC TERI Biotech Ltd (OTBL).

There is also the TERI University which, despite its title, is a commercial enterprise, of which Pachauri is chancellor, and there are many other organisations and divisions which could be separate companies, which have not been identified. And there is also his Houston Glori Oil company, about which the man is strangely reticent.

The one thing Pachauri does not tell us, therefore, is his total earnings, which may include shares, share options and other cash equivalents which all go towards what is often called the "compensation package". Rather, he leaves us with the impression that the salary is his income, which is unlikely to be the case.

Another problem we have is that a man who sees no problem with swearing false affidavits is hardly going to have a problem lying about his income, so even if he did come up with a total figure, how would we believe him?

As for the $10,000 prize, it would not surprise me if, in a grand public gesture, Pachauri "donates" the money to some worthy cause. After all, for a man living in a house worth £4.5 million who only pays his tailor £30 "to stitch his suits" (although he does not say how much he pays for the cloth), and who has a fleet of chauffeur-driven cars at his disposal while living the life-style of a multi-millionaire, a mere $10,000 is loose change.

Frankly though, how much he does earn is not the central issue. It is only relevant inasmuch as we have in Pachauri a man who is quite obviously well off telling other people who are less well off than him that they must cut back on their consumption. Hypocrisy is the issue, not greed.

CLIMATE CHANGE – FINAL PHASE THREAD