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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paulw said:
August 31, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Martin C: . . . 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 . . .
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.
Paul, Are you being sarcastic with these comments? I cant’ tell.
If not, you are wholly mistaken about “us” and what Martin C said. Saying the IPCC, hockey stick, climate models with built in CO2 and Mann should go is actually quite rational based on everything we know. The statement doesn’t imply conspiracy or communist plots to me at least.
Over time a lie cannot survive so I really don’t think it matters if he stays or goes. If he stays the IPCC loose what little credibility it has, if he is replaced by someone competent CWAG will likely continue the recent trajectory and loose any credibility or importance it had.
Why stand in the way of his making a fool of himself and the IPCC?…an icon on how not to do science under the banner of the UN.
Lomborg knows how to market his next book… pouah!
I think he has to return to Almora
Keep him there hes doing a wonderful job for the skeptics LOL
Missing the Point
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2010/08/missing-point.html
I think the IPCC should hang around for the next two decades, at least. Then they should be demanded to explain why the world is freezing and starving to death because the IPCC failed to warn of the Grand Solar Minimum that has just begun and will be in full force by 2030.
It is planetary mechanics which drives climate; CO2 can only come along for the ride.
The IPCC cannot be reformed or improved. It was set up to find evidence of man’s influence on climate and it has done that. It is fundamentally flawed. However, too many finely-scented ar*se-holes have their bums in the butter, so the charade will continue, rather like Marie Antoinette in her peasant’s hovel…. or Potemkin’s villages …or …. oh, there are so many examples of elites just losing touch with reality, until they lost touch with their heads.
Very provocative ,Tom,but you’ve provided the evidence for why Pachauri led the way you allege: it’s a shoestring organisation,built around volunteerism,per diems and limited staffing. Assign funding ,staffing and real infrastructure and they would move with your times.
You implicitly criticise Pachauri for not gaining better funding and staffing,which could improve its responsiveness.. But if the IPCC demanded and received better resources,he’d be bagged for empire-building and seeking undue influence,given the ideological hostility they face.
Given the IAC report recommends new leadership every reporting period, and his long service Pachauri,will go soon at a realistic time.
Martin C is exactly right, for this reason:
The IPCC was not established to do science. It was created for the express purpose of lending institutional weight to the article of faith among the enviro-leftists that mankind was causing ‘global warming’ and that urgent action would be required to save the Earth from this purely imaginary catastrophe.
It is as if a huge bureaucracy was created to amass documentary evidence that inside the Earth was a giant fledgling chick, ready to hatch and burst our fragile world asunder. The aim is to terrify the population and begin vast projects to still that dangerous young life before it hatches. Never mind if real scientists say it’s all poppycock.*
You cannot prejudice the conclusion of a scientific investigation without fatally skewering the science. The IPCC should be unceremoniously abolished.
/Mr Lynn
* This of course was the plot of an amazing story by the late Nelson Bond, “And Lo! The Bird.” Except there it was real: http://tinyurl.com/2bka5qg
redbubble? where did that link come from?
I recall back in January or so you predicted Pachauri would be gone by now. He seems to be drawing it out as long and painfully as he can.
I agree with Ed Forbes; David, UK; tarpon; Orkneygal; and Stephan. Let Pachauri keep his little sinecure, let him write an Almora sequel, and let the IPCC ride off into the sunset as quickly as possible. It’ll be a welcome contrast to the Zombie Hockey Stick, the thing that refuses to die, no matter how many times it’s killed.
What is that strange silence I hear from the Nobel committee?
IPCC’s Pachauri should resign for “failures of leadership”
Why should he? He set up a residual oil extraction company and is currently its scientific advisor.
/end sarc /
http://www.glorioil.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7&Itemid=10
It’s a sign of how far the IPCC’s status has dropped that there are so few comments (so far) on this posting and the one about the IAC report on the IPCC. This is about chickens coming home to roost and these outcomes were long ago predicted here at WUWT. It’s almost like deja vu.
I echo the calls for the IPCC to be disbanded.
Conservation is good. Encouraging efficiencies is good. Speedier development of poor nations is good. Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, and by extension reducing our support of unpleasant regimes, is good too. There was never a need for a fake consensus based on contentions, complex and at times poorly understood science for people to move in that direction. Neither is there a need for a global regime of carbon taxes or and a form of global Government.(Which *are* what the UN wants.)
The arguments for those positive outcomes can all be made using just politics and economics. Africa would benefit greatly it if was no longer hooked on subsidies. Countryside tends to be better protected by wealthier nations so let’s raise the income of the poorest by trading with them. Their income rises, our cost of living falls. Fossil fuels may or may not be limited in supply but detaching the cost of living from oil prices would surely be a good thing. I do not take kindly to people living a jet-set lifestyle lecturing me on how to be eco-friendly.
The very being of the UN is to bind nations together. This conflagration inhibits nations doing their own thing and slows down the responsiveness of the international community. It is stifling innovation. More unilateral action is what is needed! Competition between nations and between institutions to find practical solutions to actual problems is what is consistently missing from the UN-led efforts to combat the perceived man-made climate change. What we have instead is massively expensive white elephants for prestige purposes – the UK wind farm target and the EU nuclear fission project are two that spring to mind.
For as long as the IPCC has existed it has mostly served as an excuse for inaction, taxpayer funded jollies to holiday resorts (and Copenhagen) and props up potty answers to a *potential* problem. It is riddled with vested interests and highly susceptible to fraud.(see: Clean development mechanism, carbon credits, REDD, etc) We do not need them. Redistribute wealth by choice through trade and nations can afford their own climate change adaption programmes, if they chose to spend anything on it at all.
@paulw says:
August 31, 2010 at 2:00 pm
“…as if we are like those conspiracy theorists who believe that climate change is a communist plot for world domination….”
Václav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, who I dare say knows far more about communism than you or I, might disagree vehemently with you:
http://www.klaus.cz/clanky/266
“…They need not do it because the climate change debate is basically not about science; it is about ideology. It is not about global temperature; it is about the concept of human society. It is not about scientific ecology; it is about environmentalism, which is a new anti-individualistic, pseudo-collectivistic ideology based on putting nature and environment and their supposed protection and preservation before and above freedom. That’s one of the reasons why my recently published book on this topic has a subtitle: “What is Endangered, Climate or Freedom?”….”
Now get off your high horse.
@paulw says:
August 31, 2010 at 2:00 pm
“…as if we are like those conspiracy theorists who believe that climate change is a communist plot for world domination….”
Václav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, who I dare say knows far more about communism than you or I, might vehemently disagree with you:
http://www.klaus.cz/clanky/266
“…They need not do it because the climate change debate is basically not about science; it is about ideology. It is not about global temperature; it is about the concept of human society. It is not about scientific ecology; it is about environmentalism, which is a new anti-individualistic, pseudo-collectivistic ideology based on putting nature and environment and their supposed protection and preservation before and above freedom. That’s one of the reasons why my recently published book on this topic has a subtitle: “What is Endangered, Climate or Freedom?”….”
Now get off your politically correct high horse.
Pachauri was appointed to help achieve the objective as defined by the UN . . supranational government control over the very underpinning of national economic development, CO2.
How can they fire him when he points to the fact that he has met his job description requirements? I mean it’s not his fault the scientific underpinnings of the AGW enterprise are crap.
No , I see a dignified retirement ( dudes 70 anyway ) attached to a huge golden parachute followed by the appointment of someone who looks less like a love guru. A nice, bland, Australian fellow traveler probably.
Mind you having just read about Prof Lomberg switching sides it’s rather obvious that this particular (AGW) horse has died . . . professional contrarians don’t like being in the mainstream.
Keith Battye says:
August 31, 2010 at 11:52 pm
“Mind you having just read about Prof Lomberg switching sides it’s rather obvious that this particular (AGW) horse has died . . . professional contrarians don’t like being in the mainstream.”
Makes sense in theory but, as is clear from his books, particularly ‘Cool It,’ Lomborg didn’t really switch sides.
Also:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100051954/but-lomborg-was-always-a-warmist/
It’s weird really. While the IPCC scientists expend billions fantasising about the end of the world their leader expends company time writing a book fantasising about getting his end away. Synchronicity?
The IPCC is not a small body, it is the public face of the UNFCC. Yes, the IPCC should go and so should the UNFCCC and its interminable COP’s. Keep Pachauri; if he goes they will say the IPCC has been cleansed and will carry on, only with a bigger budget.
The false claims are still in AR4, beyond the headline glacier one. For example, unsupportable claims on ocean acidification are already the starting point in AR5, ie, “we know the oceans are becoming more acid”…
This is some vindication but not yet a victory.
I’m over the moon that the best the UK Guardian could do to counter the Express headlines “CLIMATE CHANGE LIES EXPOSED”, was headlines to embrace “skeptic changed sides” Bjorn Lomborg who, as stated above, was always a warmist.
TERI was first established in 1974 as the Tata Energy Research Institute, (TERI), based in New Delhi. Dr Pachauri became Director in 1981 and Director-General in 2001.
In an interview15 with the Times of India, December 21st, 2009, he was quite unequivocal about TERI’s links with the Tata group. Pachauri said, ‘‘Our ties ended when Darbari Seth, who was on our board, died in 1999. We haven’t received a single penny from Tatas for years and have no ties with them.’’ He added that TERI submits its yearly accounts to the government under Section 12 of the income tax law. ‘‘We fully comply with all government laws,’’ he said.
There is a worrying discrepancy between Dr Pachauri’s claim that any ties ended in 1999 and a report in the Indian Express of January 22, 2003 which described the change of name of the Tata Energy Research Institute to The Energy and Resources Institute on January 21st 2003, still of course, TERI, although communication manager Annapurna Vancheswaran was quick to comment at the time, “We have not severed our past relationship16 with the Tatas. It’s only (the change of name) for convenience.” Clearly, TERI was still the Tata Energy Research Institute for four years after Pachauri claims all ties had ended.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/originals/no_fossil_fool.html
It was still the Tata Energy and Resources Institute in 2001, when Dr Pachauri received $45,000 from the Alfred P Sloan Foundation: http://www.sloan.org/assets/files/annual_reports/2001_annual_report.pdf
GLOBALIZATION, OFFICER GRANT – Tata Energy and Resources Institute Arlington, VA 22209 – $45,000 for support to plan a project to involve western businesses in poverty alleviation. Project Director: R. K.Pachauri, President.
Harold T Shapiro, (Chairman of the IAC committee looking into the IPCC), was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Sloan Foundation at the time. http://wws.princeton.edu/people/data/h/hts/CV.pdf
The foundation still sponsors TERI-NA: http://www.terina.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24
John Whitman says:
August 31, 2010 at 2:19 pm
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.
—————————–
Long before the IAC report was made public the selections for AR5
writers were made: 60 % of the teams (about 500 persons) are new,
including most chapter leaders.
Lack of trust in IPCC is a problem for you sceptics mainly. True: the
general public is confused and uneasy. I blame the media mostly.
IAC suggested a lot of targeted reforms, precisely because they
know that IPCC is important and scientifically sound.