Klimaatgekte: Geloofwaardigheid IPCC-chef Pachauri ligt onder vuur

[Dr. Marc-Alexander Fluks]

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Bron:   New York Times
Datum:  8 februari 2010
Auteur: Elisabeth Rosenthal
URL:    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/science/earth/09climate.html


U.N. climate panel and chief face credibility siege
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Just over two years ago, Rajendra K. Pachauri seemed destined for
a scientist's version of sainthood: A vegetarian economist-engineer
who leads the United Nations’ climate change panel, he accepted the
2007 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the panel, sharing the honor
with former Vice President Al Gore.

But Dr. Pachauri and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
are now under intense scrutiny, facing accusations of scientific
sloppiness and potential financial conflicts of interest from
climate skeptics, right-leaning politicians and even some mainstream
scientists. Senator John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, called for
Dr. Pachauri's resignation last week.

Critics, writing in Britain's Sunday Telegraph and elsewhere, have
accused Dr. Pachauri of profiting from his work as an adviser to
businesses, including Deutsche Bank and Pegasus Capital Advisors,
a New York investment firm - a claim he denies.

They have also unearthed and publicized problems with the inter-
governmental panel's landmark 2007 report on climate change, which
concluded that the planet was warming and that humans were likely
to blame.

The report, they contend, misrepresents the state of scientific
knowledge about diverse topics - including the rate of melting of
Himalayan glaciers and the rise in severe storms - in a way that
exaggerates the evidence for climate change.

With a global climate treaty under negotiation and legislation
pending in the United States, the climate panel has found itself
in the political cross hairs, its judgments provoking passions
normally reserved for issues like abortion and guns. The panel is
charged by the United Nations with reviewing research to create
periodic reports on climate risks, documents that are often used
by governments to guide decisions, and its every conclusion is
being dissected under a microscope.

Several of the recent accusations have proved to be half-truths:
While Dr. Pachauri does act as a paid consultant and adviser to
many companies, he makes no money from these activities, he said.
The payments go to the Energy and Resources Institute, the
prestigious nonprofit research center based in Delhi that he
founded in 1982 and still leads, where the money finances
charitable projects like Lighting a Billion Lives, which provides
solar lanterns in rural India. 'My conscience is clear,' Dr.
Pachauri said in a lengthy telephone interview.

The panel, in reviewing complaints about possible errors in its
report, has so far found that one was justified and another was
'baseless.' The general consensus among mainstream scientists is
that the errors are in any case minor and do not undermine the
report's conclusions.

Still, the escalating controversy has led even many of them to
conclude that the Nobel-winning panel needs improved scientific
standards as well as a policy about what kinds of other work its
officers may pursue.

'When I look at Dr. Pachauri's case I see obvious and egregious
problems,' said Dr. Roger A. Pielke Jr., a political scientist and
professor of environmental science at the University of Colorado.
He said that serving as an adviser to financial companies was
inappropriate for the chairman of the United Nations' panel,
whether Dr. Pachauri received payment directly or not.

Dr. Pachauri bristles at the accusations, which he says are 'lies'
or 'distortions' promulgated by groups hoping to undermine climate
legislation and a treaty.  'These people want to distort the picture
for their own ends,' Dr. Pachauri said, noting that the report was
released two years ago and that the criticisms were only now coming
into the limelight. 'What we're doing is not only above-board, but
laudable,' he said. 'These guys want me to resign, but I won’t.'

Dr. Pachauri, 69, said the only work income he received was a salary
from the Energy and Resources Institute: about $49,000, according to
his 2009 Indian tax return, which he provided to The New York Times.
The return also lists $16,000 in other income, most of it interest
on accounts in Indian banks.

Dr. Pachauri acknowledged his role as an adviser and consultant to
businesses, but he said that it was his responsibility as the panel's
chairman to disseminate its findings to industry.

Nonetheless, Christopher Monckton, a leading climate skeptic, called
the panel corrupt, adding: 'The chair is an Indian railroad engineer
with very substantial direct and indirect financial vested interests
in the matters covered in the climate panel's report. What on earth
is he doing there?'

A former adviser to Margaret Thatcher who also assailed Dr. Pachauri
in a critique in Copenhagen that has since been widely circulated,
Lord Monckton is now the chief policy adviser to the Science and
Public Policy Institute, a Washington-based research and education
institute that states on its Web site: 'Proved: There is no climate
crisis.'

As the accusations have snowballed in the last six weeks, Dr. Pachauri
remains widely admired for his work on the intergovernmental panel,
which relies on the collaborative work of hundreds of volunteer
scientists to sift through current scientific evidence for its
reports. He has served in an elected, unpaid position as chairman of
the panel, often known by its initials, I.P.C.C., since 2002.

'There is no evidence that outside interests affected Pachauri's
leadership of the I.P.C.C. at all,' said Hal Harvey, chief executive
of ClimateWorks, a foundation based in San Francisco that focuses on
how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The panel's process is so
'robust and transparent' that it could not be undercut by
'personalities or errors,' he said. He added, 'Anyone who is
qualified to chair the I.P.C.C. will have interests in academics,
science, politics or business; there are thousands of scientists on
the I.P.C.C., and you need their expertise and they all have to
come from somewhere.'

Many government panels in the United States tolerate overt conflicts
of interest in order to get expert advice, Mr. Harvey said, noting
that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has the chief executive of
JPMorgan Chase on its board.

But most scientific agencies have explicit conflict-of-interest
policies to ensure that expert advice is impartial. The Food and
Drug Administration, for example, asks doctors who serve on drug
advisory panels to disclose payments from pharmaceutical companies
and can disqualify those whose financial involvement is too great.

Dr. Pielke, the University of Colorado professor, said the United
Nations panel, which has no explicit conflict policy, should do the
same, adding, 'You need to make sure that advice is advice and not
stealth advocacy.'

Some critics have said that the intergovernmental panel's chairman
should be employed full time by the United Nations while in office,
and should eschew outside commitments.

The accusations of errors in the panel's report - most originating
from two right-leaning British papers, The Sunday Telegraph and The
Times of London - have sullied the group's reputation. They follow
a controversy that erupted late last year over e-mail messages and
documents released without authorization from a climate research
center in Britain.

In one case, the report included a sentence that said the Himalayan
glaciers could disappear by 2035. The sentence was based on a decade-
old interview with a glaciologist in a popular magazine; the
scientist now says he was misquoted. The panel recently expressed
'regret' for the error.

The panel was also criticized for citing a study about financial
losses after extreme weather events that found an increase in such
losses of 2 percent a year from 1970 to 2005. That study had not
been peer reviewed at the time, although it was later on.
The panel has called the complaint 'baseless,' noting that the study
was cited appropriately and that other scientific data pointed to a
recent rise in severe storms.

Lord Monckton said the incidents reflected a pattern of willful
misrepresentation by scientists with financial and professional
interests that render them unsuitable to give neutral advice.

In response to the recent criticisms, Dr. Pachauri provided an
accounting of some of his outside consulting fees paid to the Energy
and Resources Institute. Those include about $140,000 from Deutsche
Bank, $25,000 from Credit Suisse, $80,000 from Toyota and $48,750
from Yale. He has recently begun work as a strategic adviser for
Pegasus, the investment firm, but has not yet attended a meeting,
and no money has yet been paid to the Energy and Resources Institute.
He has also provided advice free of charge to groups like the Chicago
Climate Exchange.

The energy institute has financial interests in a number of companies.
For example, it was awarded stock by the founders of GloriOil, a
start-up based in Houston, in exchange for permission to use a method
developed at the institute to extract residual oil from older wells.
'We thought about it long and hard, and decided to get involved in this
because the U.S. has the largest number of these wells and it is better
than drilling offshore or in Alaska,” Dr. Pachauri said.

The institute also provides paid consulting. For example, engineers at
the institute are designing two Indian solar parks for the Clinton
Climate Initiative. Dr. Pachauri added that research institutes in
poorer countries like India could not depend on government largess,
as those in the United States did. The institute gets its money from
a variety of sources, including the European Union, foundations and
private companies. 'We have to generate our own resources from our
work,' he said. 'This is an institute that has pulled itself up by
its bootstraps.'

But even some academics who accept that climate change is a problem
are concerned about such activities. 'This is not about whether this
is a good person or a good cause; it's about the integrity of the
scientific process,' Dr. Pielke said, adding: 'This has become so
polarized, it's like you must be in cahoots with the bad guys if you
are at all negative about Pachauri.'

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(c) 2010 The New York Times Company

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