Guest Post by Thomas Fuller
There is a core of uber-consulting professionals, jetting around the world advising companies, governments and NGO’s. They are well-educated, have impeccable resumes and travel more than George Clooney did in ‘Up in the Air.’ They work for companies like McKinsey, Price Waterhouse Coopers, and a handful of others.
Rajendra Pachauri is one such, coming from the Tata school of consultancy. He is charismatic, projecting leadership qualities and obviously considers himself a polymath, able to lead a secretariat of the UN, continue his professional duties and write a popular bodice ripper of a novel.
Sadly, like so many other uber-consultants, Pachauri’s leadership qualities have been more apparent than real. While others are using the current troubles at the IPCC as a reason to argue for his resignation, they are really more of a symptom of the real problems.
Because the IPCC is very small and its primary mission is to produce a report once every five or six years, it is vulnerable to the type of leadership Pachauri apparently provides–detached, aloof, hands-off. That Pachauri had time to write a book during the firestorm of Climategate and COP-15 is evidence that, whatever his capabilities, his performance at the IPCC was not sufficiently engaged. His shabby treatment of IPCC scientists regarding the error on Himalayan glaciers is more of an exclamation point than anything else.
Roger Pielke Jr. and others are saying Pachauri should resign because of conflicts of interest. Pachauri is director of TERI and advises third parties on energy policy and investment decisions. Pielke is right in saying that Pachauri would not meet the standards for avoiding conflicts of interest in many other organisations, including other UN bodies. But those standards are not in place at the IPCC, although they are recommended in yesterday’s report from the InterAcademy Council.
I also think Pachauri should resign. But not because of conflicts of interest. His continued involvement with TERI, his taking time to write a book, his hectic social schedule all point to another, more serious problem. His detached style of leadership has coincided with a period of continuous problems at the organisation he leads. And I’m not referring to the occasional error that inevitably slips into their huge assessment reports. The IPCC has not moved with the times during Pachauri’s tenure. They have not adapted to an age of the Internet in facilitating communications.
They have not recognised the political pressure that environmental organisations are trying to put on national and international governments and institutions. This has led to a careless over use of ‘grey’ literature, which is not peer reviewed and often has a clear point to push. The IPCC has not instituted a clear and effective way of dealing with mistakes, despite it getting ever easier to do this. Perhaps most damaging, the IPCC has adopted a view on communications that is from another century, focused on getting their message out, as opposed to listening and responding.
These are classic failures of leadership. Nobody but Rajendra Pachauri is responsible for these problems. Good leadership would have corrected them years ago. Detached leadership smiles and writes a book. Pachauri played socialite while his organisation stagnated. He received awards–not just the Nobel Prize, which he shared with Al Gore, but also the French Legion of Honour, Order of the White Rose from Finland, and the Padma Bhushan from his native India. He is apparently his organisation’s chief press officer, and its ambassador as well, flying all over the world to meetings and conferences. And yes, he does have other interests, including the Tata Energy Research Institute.
The IPCC’s–and Rajendra Pachauri’s–real problem is not a conflict of interest. It is a lack of interest. Pachauri fiddled while the IPCC foundered. He should go.
Thomas Fuller http://www.redbubble.com/people/hfuller
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Good article, but I would like to see the issue taken a step further. Not only should Pachauri go, . . .
. . . THE ENTIRE IPCC SHOULD GO.
. . . and then after that, the hockey stick’, climate models (at least the ones that have the ‘CO2 increase temps’ built into them), then Mann, et al . . .
Wishful thinking on my part I guess . . .
You might want to edit the post because Tata has not been formally associated with Teri since 2003. From Wikipedia:
“TERI registered in Delhi in 1974 as the Tata Energy Research Institute. As the scope of its activities widened over a period of time, it was renamed The Energy and Resources Institute in 2003.”
My simple vote is for his resignation.
“That Pachauri had time to write a book during the firestorm of Climategate and COP-15 is evidence that . . .”
Well, to be perfectly honest, I took it as evidence that it doesn’t take a whole lot of engagement to write a bodice ripper; although I freely admit that I am biased toward that opinion. Might even, during a period of high stress, be a good way to blow off some, ummm . . .steam. Yeah, steam. That’s what I was thinking all along.
Remember also that Pachauri, as all top UN officials, was a political appointment. He was sanctioned by Bush.
There is definitely a case that such people should be given limited terms of tenure.
“They have not recognised the political pressure that environmental organisations are trying to put on national and international governments and institutions.”
Thomas, they recognized it only too well and used it and pushed it DELIBERATELY to exercise this pressure on governments. Indeed his use of grey literature (specifically WWF and Greenpeace tracts) are evidence of it. He opened his doors to these organizations and gave them the most powerful voice they had ever had. They rose from freshman high-jinx – hanging signs on buildings, exciting larks at sea and the like, to one of the ugliest conglomerates of fear and garnishers of world power. Imagine an environmental group saying to skeptics or anyone for that matter:
***We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work.
And we be many, but you be few. ***
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/06/damage-control-greenpeace-removes-threats/
The prizes Pachauri received were enabling. They gave him ultra-arrogance and plenipotentiary powers that were on the brink of destroying the world economy for ever.
Reading the financial report of KPMG on Pachauri and TERI shows that Pachauri is the climate science Shirley Sherrod.
Our attitude, as shown above, gives the impression that we are the Andrew Breitbart of climate science.
He is not but one of the many, like you say, uber-consulting professionals, jetting around the world advising companies, governments and NGO’s., so he will be replaced by some other-and younger- devil’s apprentice.
Many years I wondered what a noble man could be, till I found the answer: “A noble man is he who never surrenders his principles”. In “modern” and “civilized” times those who are not have flourished like deadly bacteria on a petri dish or like worms onto a decaying corpse.
We can’t do anything but just wait for the end of times and pray.
These comments makes us look bad, as if we are like those conspiracy theorists who believe that climate change is a communist plot for world domination. We should be careful with our comments.
Pachauri is only guilty of failure of leadership if his goal was to present an impartial assessment of the science. If his goal was to provide fodder for the Green Machine leading up to Copenhagen, he did a bang up job. The real question is: did the AR4 contain misinformation and violate the IPCC’s own rules regarding use of gray literature etc., despite his leadership, or because of it? It’s the difference between nonfeasance and misfeasance.
Is there any evidence that Pachauri was actually unaware of what was going into the IPCC products? Or is he perhaps going to be thrown under the bus for getting caught?
An IPCC “on steroids” needed asap.
Couldn’t have said it any better, despite the inviting target that Pachauri presents on so many levels. Leadership, even management, requires much different qualities than consultantcy.
“If you don’t drink your milk I’ll call Patchy…”
I support the call for Rajendra Pachauri ‘s resignation from the IPCC, immediately.
My further call is that he be prohibited from further participation in any UN activity in the future as well. Time for Pachauri to stop occupying positions of public trust at the UN.
Also, some of his IPCC vice chairs should be removed immediately. Need new blood right now to ensure that for AR5 it is not the business -as-usual that was practiced in the AR4 prep.
Likewise, some of the WG1, WG2 & WG3 Co-Chairs and Vice Chairs should be removed. Again, need new blood to ensure that for AR5 it is not the business -as-usual that was practiced in the AR4 prep.
Likewise, the editors and lead authors of all 3 WGs need new faces in enough numbers to shake up the old habits formed in the AR4 prep.
Any argument against the above replacements/shakeups because they might delay the AR5 cannot have merit because the issue is trust not schedule. IPCC cannot any longer compromise trust. We need an AR5 that can be trusted even if later rather than an AR5 sooner that has the same old lack of trust problems.
John
“And I’m not referring to the occasional error that inevitably slips into their huge assessment reports.”
Really, you want to go with that characterization of the errors in the report ? Slips into ??? like on a bar of soap ?
in some organizations a sloppy leader with an obvious agenda wouldn’t be reflective of the workers within that organization but in this case you are simply trying to scapegoat him and ignore the obvious biases of the entire team …
nice try …
The IPCC’s–and Rajendra Pachauri’s–real problem is not a conflict of interest. It is a lack of interest. Pachauri fiddled while the IPCC foundered. He should go.
———————————————————————————–
Wrong! He didn’t fiddle while the IPCC foundered. He exploited his position in it for his other interests while it foundered. That is execrable.
Doug
It is time to do the honorable thing and resign.
The epitome of a greedy, narcissistic, dirty old man. No wonder he and Obama get along so well.
Once he had it all,
Fame and power and money.
What was done with that?
============
Guys…the IPCC is NOT going to be scraped.
So…lets try and keep it weak.
Pachauri’s the man for the job. A vote to keep him at the head is a vote to keep the IPCC weak.
Leave the shallow little money grubber where he is, I say. He is a perfect representation of what the entire IPCC is. Heaven help the free world, should the IPCC replace him with a competent leader.
I say no, he is about as inept as it gets, that’s a good thing. So keep him as long as possible, as the face of the money grubbing politicians.
I would not assume that Pachauri would be replaced by anyone better. It’s more important to push for the procedural changes from the IAC report.
I see Dr. Pachauri as presenting a face of questionable behaviour and self-interest within the IPCC. If the IPCC doesn’t go, then I think Dr. Pachauri should stay in charge. Every day he is in charge of the IPCC is another day that the IPCC stature’s is diminished, and an ineffective IPCC is a good thing.
This is much too mild.
Pachauri’s charity, TERI, was paid millions in grants to study the glaciers in the Himalayas as a direct consequence of the claim in AR4 that they would vanish by 2035 leaving billions of people without water supplies. He used this grant money to employ Syed Hussain to lead the research, the same man who first made the erroneous claim which AR4 had repeated.
TERI, after recieving all this money to study the problem, seem not to have noticed that the glaciers were not melting very fast, in fact some were expanding. They seem not to have advised there own boss, Pachauri, of the obvious mistake in the AR4 report.
When a local glaciologist pointed out the obvious mistake in AR4, Pachauri, wearing his hat as chairman of the IPCC, poured scorn on the whistleblower and called him a voodoo scientist. Pachauri then took weeks to admit there was a mistake in AR4. After admitting he was wrong to say the AR4 report was correct he said he was not responsible for the errors and was washing his hands of the whole affair.
Pachauri’s life style, and the spending of TERI’s money to build a sumptuous HQ with it’s own water guzzling golf course, is incompatable with being a chairman of the IPCC