Pachauri: I Have No Intention of Resigning

Pressure on UN Climate Chief Rajendra Pachauri increases as investigators uncover more evidence that the program administrator may have used mistakes printed in the IPCC report for personal gain. The London Times reported that Pachauri's foundation, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), was awarded well over $500,000 in the last month alone based on a grant application that specifically referred to the erroneous Himalayan claim in the IPCC report he oversaw. In addition to the $500,000 awarded by the US Carnegie corporation, the same claim was also used on a $4 million grant application awarded by the the British Government last year to "assess the impact of Himalayan glacier retreat".

The claim, which states that the Himalayan glaciers will melt by 2035 or sooner and cut off water supplies for 20% of the world's population, was disproved by Indian scientists who Pachauri once claimed were "blind to [the] reality" of global warming. The same scientists uncovered that the IPCC had not done any research on the Himalayan glaciers and made their assertions based on a media interview with a glaciologist who also had not studied the mountain range. Pachauri retracted his statement and admitted that it could take hundreds of years to see a complete melt of the Himalayas. Pachauri quickly pointed out that this does not change the fact that the Himalayan glaciers and other ice sheets around the world are in a state of decline. The Indian government's report agrees with Pachauri's statement, but points out that their research cannot find the positive correlation between the warming climate and glacial decline.

Pachauri's Energy and Resource Institute foundation has been under scrutiny for some time due to contributions it has received from major corporations, from the Indian TATA mega corporation to Toyota and Deutsche Bank. Pachauri defended against accusations of a conflict of interest by stating that "these payments are all made directly to [his] institute." In an interview with The London Times he said his only income comes from his salary at TERI. However TERI does not publish his salary and he refused to divulge it.

Just one week before the IPCC retraction made headlines, Pachauri published an article in The Guardian's editorial section warning against climate skeptics "working overtime" in 2010 to discredit global warming and those that advocate it.

In a press conference last Saturday, Pachauri said that he will not step down over "unintentional and insignificant errors." Pachauri went on to say that as IPCC chief, he saw no reason to take action against the authors and editors that published the now-disproven section on the Himalayan ice sheet.

Continuing as the United Nations climate chief, Pachauri will continue to draw from a research budget paid from member nations — and by extension their taxpayers — until at least 2014 when the next IPCC report is scheduled to be completed.