UN IPCC chief Pachauri under fire in India for conflicts of interest

From the “follow the money” department, this story has been building momentum ever since the story was made public by Christopher Booker and Dr. Richard North of the EU Referendum who three weeks ago co-wrote a major piece in the Sunday Telegraph. WUWT initially covered the story here on December 21st: Pachauri’s Carbon Choo-Choo off the rails.

The following week the Telegraph had a follow up story, and more questions than answers were raised.

Now it appears the story “has legs”, and is being covered in India by India Today, front and center on their Sunday edition.

The subheadline reads: “Climate change hero was on boards of oil and power PSU’s with large carbon footprints, got crores worth of business for TERI from them”

Pachauri of course denies any conflict of interest. Details on TERI (The Energy Research Institute) here

The India Today newspaper writes:

Pachauri’s answer to this charge is: “I haven’t pocketed a penny from my association with companies and institutes,” he said.

“All honoraria I get go to TERI and to its ‘Light A Billion Lives’ campaign for reaching solar power to people without electricity. My dealings are above board.” The climate change hero is quick with his answers, but doubts over his links linger.

Now that this story has legs, we’ll see more investigative journalism coming and those “doubts over his links” will get filled in, one way or another. There are questions now arising as to the legality of some of the dealing TERI has had in Britain and the way it reports its dealings to the Charity Commission.

There’s another interesting twist to this that involves Climategate and the CRU.

Pachauri is one of the two directors of TERI. He is also a trustee, along with Sir John Houghton and Sir Crispin Tickell, (see here) formerly England’s man at the UN and the person who converted Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to a belief in global warming, which led her to allocate the money Houghton needed to set up the HadleyCentre for Climate Change.

As WUWT readers know, Hadley (along with the CRU) has played a key part in the story of climate research (and Climategate) ever since.

We have Al Gore who is viewed by many as being the most influential communicator on the climate change issue who is up to his neck in carbon trading and also has many board associations that help his cause. Now we have the leader of the UN’s IPCC with questionable business associations. Where’s NYT’s Andy Revkin? Where’s 60 Minutes? Where’s Dateline NBC?

Above: Gore and Pachauri get the Nobel Prize.

And here’s the kicker from the Telegraph’s follow up story:

Initially, when Dr Pachauri took over the running of TERI in the 1980s, his interests centred on the oil and coal industries, which may now seem odd for a man who has since become best known for his opposition to fossil fuels. He was, for instance, a director until 2003 of India Oil, the country’s largest commercial enterprise, and until this year remained as a director of the National Thermal Power Generating Corporation, its largest electricity producer.

In 2005, he set up GloriOil, a Texas firm specialising in technology which allows the last remaining reserves to be extracted from oilfields otherwise at the end of their useful life.

However, since Pachauri became a vice-chairman of the IPCC in 1997, TERI has vastly expanded its interest in every kind of renewable or sustainable technology, in many of which the various divisions of the Tata Group have also become heavily involved, such as its project to invest $1.5 billion (£930 million) in vast wind farms.

Next time somebody says “skeptic “x” is connected with big oil”, show them this.

Tiger Woods downfall was external affairs outside of his vow of matrimony. By the same token, Dr. Pachauri is “married” to the IPCC and is apparently conducting “business affairs” that appear to be a conflict of interest outside of his vow of public service. If this isn’t grounds for a divorce from the IPCC, I don’t know what would be.

Follow the money, not the temperature.