GROUND ZERO
MYSTERY OF THE NON DISAPPEARING GLACIERS
'Demise 2035' was a typo. Can you believe it, the typo missed the markby a mere 300 years. 2035 was actually supposed to be 2350. Bizarre,no?Has anyone heard of proof reading? If there is one man caught in anunplesant maelstrom, it is nay sayer and doomsdayer R K Pachauri. Overthe last couple of days, the heat has really been turned on him. OnWednesday last week, the United Nations's Inter governmental panel onClimate Change (IPCC), incidentally a panel of 2500 best of breedclimate scientists of the world accepted that it had made a faux pasof gargantuan proportions in its fourth assessment report on climatechange and most vitally withdrew its controversial finding that theHimalayan glaciers ran the risk of being destroyed by 2035. But thatwasn't the end of it. He then went onto defend his actions and thefindings of the report by reacting in a blase manner and saying thatthe UN panel stood by its overall findings on melting glaciers despiteone error in a thousand page report. It has sent shockwaves in thescientific community and as chairman of the prestigious Nobel Prizewinning IPCC, Pachauri is in the dog house.
By admitting that proper procedures were not followed while arrivingat the glacier findings, he has put his country on the back foot. Thereason - poorly substantiated estimates of rates of recession and datefor the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers. And then the bombshell -In drafting the paragraph in question, clear and well establishedstandards of evidence, required by IPCC procedures were not appliedproperly. This shocking admission of guilt and the attempt to couchthe gravity of the statement, Pachauri has lost many friends. What ithas also done is show India in very poor light. As the Times of Indiapointed out in its page one report last week, the error shows the kindof carelessness that went into writing the report. Further bydefending the indefensible in an interview on the inside page, he hasonly tightened the noose around his neck.
On Thursday, Pachauri while releasing the Teri report on India'senergy security chose to keep mum on the 'Himalayan blunder'. As farback as November, glaciologist Dr VK Raina in a discussion paper hadquestioned the veracity of the glacier melting theory propounded byIPCC. Whistle blower Raina's paper on Himalayan glaciers hadcategorically asserted that, "it will be premature to make a statementthat the glaciers in the Himalayas are retreating abnormally becauseof climate change." Raina's study was then dismissed as 'vodooscience' by Pachauri. Economic Times on Friday reported that in hisscathing attack on India's senior most glaciologist, he accussed Rainathen of trivialising science, questioning the academic content of thepaper and charging environment minister Jairam Ramesh of being overlyarrogant and supporting Dr Raina's conclusions. Let me repeat whatPachauri had said then: "It can't be on the basis of what two persons,the minister and one more person think. It is going against thefindings of IPCC. It creates a sense of complacency that climatechange is not for real." After agreeing to the boo boo, in hisinterview to ToI, Pachauri said on January 21, "In this case, therehas been an error, but the overall findings, the problems of themelting glaciers, we stand by it." But what about that one error?Shouldn't Pachauri resign and hang his head in shame. Don't forget hismelting glaciers report has also compromised India's stand andposition in the complex climate change confabulations in Copehagen?
Actually the dominos were set in motion again late last month when thesame Pachauri was accussed of earninga fortune from the science. At the very kernel of the allegations wasa damaging report by the right wing conservative, but well respectedDaily Telegraph of UK. This is the second time in a month thatIntergovernmental Panel onClimate Change (IPCC) headed by Pachauri, which won the Nobel PeacePrize in 2008, is under attack. As HT reported recently, "Earlier,leaked emails had accused IPCC scientists in University ofEast Anglia of the US of fudging scientific data to exaggerate impactof climate change. In a rejoinder sent to the UK newspaper SundayTelegraph on Tuesdayseeking apology, Pachauri termed the allegations "a pack of lies"spread by climate sceptics, who were also behind the leaked emails(dubbed climategate scandal). "The Telegraph needs to appreciate thatthere are millions in India who don't get enough food not haveelectricity and therefore, India cannot take emission cuts," he said.
"The newspaper reported that Pachauri was part of groups includinggreen firms that benefited from IPCC's recommendations, a clear caseof conflict of interest. The article said The Energy and ResourcesInstitute (TERI), whichPachauri is heading since 1980s, stands to profit from carbon cutoptions discussed at Copenhagen and the Tata Group was a directbeneficiary. The 'T' in TERI earlier meant Tata in 1974 because it wasset up withthe seed money from the company. However, it was replaced by 'The' inthe late 80s, when the institute went independent.
"The report says the one project co-financed by UK's Department ofEnvironment, Food and Rural Affairs and the German insurance firmMunich Re, is studying how India's insurance industry, including Tata,can benefit from exploiting the supposed risks of exposure to climatechange."
The UK-based Sunday Telegraph has made some serious allegationsagainst Dr Pachauri about business interests that he has with bodieswhich have been investing billions of dollars in organisationsdependent on the IPCC's policy recommendations.
Ironically the Daily Telegraph fusillade came only a day after theCopenhagen climate summit came to an end when a personal attack followedon Dr R K Pachauri, the chair of the Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change (IPCC) and director general of The Energy and ResourcesInstitute (TERI), New Delhi by a conservative right wing newspaper ofBritain.
Let me give you a gist of what the Telegraph opined. This is what Ipicked up from the web: The United Kingdom-based Sunday Telegraph(December 20, 2009 issue)has made some serious (but unfounded) allegations against Dr Pachauriabout business interests that he has ‘with bodies which have beeninvesting billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’spolicy recommendations’.
But the institute strongly rejected the allegation clarifying that theIPCC makes no policy recommendations. In a formal press statementissued by the media desk of TERI on December 22 said, “Just for therecord, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) makes nopolicy recommendations and all its reports are in the public domain,widely distributed and disseminated across the world. There is nothingin these reports that could have any proprietary benefit.”
Written by Christopher Booker and Richard North, the article titled‘Questions over business deals of United Nations climate change guruDr Rajendra Pachauri’, also questioned Dr Pachauri’s professionalcompetence and credentials.
“Although Dr Pachauri is often presented as a scientist (he was evenonce described by the BBC as ‘the world’s top climate scientist’), asa former railway engineer with a PhD in economics he has noqualifications in climate science at all,” the article narrated.
However, the TERI statement said that Dr Pachauri’s success lies inleading TERI for two decades and also contribution he made in‘substantial measure to its present eminence as an internationallyrecognised research institution of excellence’.
“Further, Dr Pachauri was elected twice to his post as chairman of theIPCC on the basis of his record after a successful term asvice-chairman. He has wholly dedicated most of his working life toalerting the world on the basis of sound scientific evidence about thechallenges of sustainable development including those posed by climatechange. In recognition of this effort and of the work of thescientists under his leadership, the IPCC was awarded the prestigiousNobel Peace Prize in 2008,” it pointed out.
Soon after the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Changesummit during December 7 to 19, in the Danish capital resulted only ina deal (and not a legally binding agreement), the world media startedmaking news-views-articles with their own perceptions. Many of themeven didn’t hesitate to make nuisance with distorted news out of thenegotiating process that involved the heads of the government andstates of over 130 countries around the globe. It was amazing to note(I was one of the media observers in the Copenhagen summit), how asection of media persons behaved during and after the conference as ifthey (and only them) were there to seal the agreement.
Coming back to the Sunday Telegraph story, the writers even targetedPachauri’s call to opt for vegetarian food saying ‘as a vegetarianHindu, Dr Pachauri repeated his call for the world to eat less meat tocut down on methane emissions’.
But his colleagues in TERI stood behind him here saying, “We stand byDr Pachauri’s advice for human beings to cut down on their meatconsumption because the livestock and factory based meat supplyindustry of today is responsible for large scale emissions ofgreenhouse gases (GHGs).”
In a letter, sent to the Telegraph on December 20, some distinguishedfellows and colleagues of Dr Pachauri in TERI, rejected the claim thatthe Energy and Resources Institute continues to maintain close linkswith the Tata Group and assist the group in developing its carbontrading business worldwide.
“This is far from the truth,” the rejoinder said.
Signed by JL Bajaj, RK Batra, C Dasgupta, Nitin Desai, Prodipto Ghosh,Ashok Jaitly, K Ramanathan, Prabir Sengupta and S Sundar, therejoinder agree that the ‘Tatas do enjoy the envious reputation ofestablishing institutions of excellence like the Tata Institute ofFundamental Research, the National Institute of Advanced Studies, theTata Institute of Social Studies, etc and giving them autonomy indefining their agenda and the freedom to pursue their areas ofinterest’.
Here are some excerpts from the damning Daily Telegraph report, "No one in the world exercised more influence on the events leading upto the Copenhagen conference on global warming than Dr RajendraPachauri, chairman of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on ClimateChange (IPCC) and mastermind of its latest report in 2007.What has also almost entirely escaped attention, however, ishow Dr Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio ofbusiness interests with bodies which have been investing billions ofdollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policyrecommendations. These outfits include banks, oil and energy companiesand investmentfunds heavily involved in ‘carbon trading’ and ‘sustainabletechnologies’, which together make up the fastest-growing commoditymarket in the world, estimated soon to be worth trillions of dollars ayear. Today, in addition to his role as chairman of the IPCC, Dr Pachaurioccupies more than a score of such posts, acting as director oradviser to many of the bodies which play a leading role in what hasbecome known as the international ‘climate industry’.
" It is emarkable how only very recently has the staggering scale of DrPachauri’s links to so many of these concerns come to light,inevitably raising questions as to how the world’s leading ‘climateofficial’ can also be personally involved in so many organisationswhich stand to benefit from the IPCC’s recommendations.The issue of Dr Pachauri’s potential conflict of interest was firstpublicly raised last Tuesday when, after giving a lecture atCopenhagen University, he was handed a letter by two eminent ‘climatesceptics’. One was the Stephen Fielding, the Australian Senator whosparked the revolt which recently led to the defeat of hisgovernment’s ‘cap and trade scheme’. The other, from Britain, was LordMonckton, a longtime critic of the IPCC’s science, who has recentlyplayed a key part in stiffening opposition to a cap and trade bill inthe US Senate.
"Their open letter first challenged the scientific honesty of a graphprominently used in the IPCC’s 2007 report, and shown again byPachauri in his lecture, demanding that he should withdraw it. Butthey went on to question why the report had not declared Pachauri’spersonal interest in so many organisations which seemingly stood toprofit from its findings. The letter, which included information firstdisclosed in last week’sSunday Telegraph, was circulated to all the 192 national conferencedelegations, calling on them to dismiss Dr Pachauri as IPCC chairmanbecause of recent revelations of his conflicting interests.The original power base from which Dr Pachauri has built up hisworldwide network of influence over the past decade is the Delhi-basedTata Energy Research Institute, of which he became director in 1981and director-general in 2001. Now renamed The Energy ResearchInstitute, TERI was set up in 1974 by India’s largest privately-ownedbusiness empire, the Tata Group, with interests ranging from steel,cars and energy to chemicals, telecommunications and insurance (andnow best-known in the UK as the owner of Jaguar, Land Rover, TetleyTea and Corus, Britain’s largest steel company).
"Although TERI has extended its sponsorship since the name change, thetwo concerns are still closely linked. In India, Tata exercisesenormous political power, shown not least inthe way that when it expressed its interests in developing land in theeastern states of Orissa and Jarkhand, it led to the Indian governmentdisplacing hundreds of thousands of poor tribal villagers to make wayfor large-scale iron mining and steelmaking projects.Initially, when Dr Pachauri took over the running of TERI in the1980s, his interests centred on the oil and coal industries, which maynow seem odd for a man who has since become best known for hisopposition to fossil fuels. He was, for instance, a director until2003 of India Oil, the country’s largest commercial enterprise, anduntil this year remained as a director of the National Thermal PowerGenerating Corporation, its largest electricity producer.
In 2005, he set up GloriOil, a Texas firm specialising in technologywhich allows the last remaining reserves to be extracted fromoilfields otherwise at the end of their useful life. However, sincePachauri became a vice-chairman of the IPCC in 1997,TERI has vastly expanded its interest in every kind of renewable orsustainable technology, in many of which the various divisions of theTata Group have also become heavily involved, such as its project toinvest $1.5 billion (£930 million) in vast wind farms.Dr Pachauri’s TERI empire has also extended worldwide, with branchesin the US, the EU and several countries in Asia. TERI Europe, based inLondon, of which he is a trustee (along with Sir John Houghton, one ofthe key players in the early days of the IPCC and formerly head of theUK Met Office) is currently running a project on bio-energy, financedby the EU."
Many other exaqmples of conflict of interest have been provided by thereport. It is a shocking tale of woe involving an Indian. And all thisdespite a fellow India calling his bluff. Raina's scathing indictmentof Pachauri has come true. Like Banquo's ghost it is now going tohaunt Pachauri and Indians around the world. Even if Pachauri wants tohold onto his baubles and not walk into the sunset, he owes a personalaplogy to the former deputy director general of the Glaciology Surveyof India Dr Raina. To Times of India's credit, they have been trackingthis extremely important story on a daily basis and bringing us up tospeed with pachauri and his glib talk. And kudos to environmentminister Jairam Ramesh for backing Raina against a now embattledPachauri. Last word to Raina who told the Hindu, "But all along I knewthat this was not based on facts. During my 50 years of research andseveral expeditions to the region, I never found anything assensational as was predicted in the IPCC, but no one heard me then.”And of course praise should be lavished on an alert media - DailyTelegraph.
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