Pachauri: conflict of interest

It looks as if the Indian media is taking the "Patchygate" affair seriously, with the New Delhi Mail Today taking on our revered "climate change hero" in a banner, front-page headline story, continued on a full page inside. The story is also online published by India Today.

Relying heavily on our story in The Sunday Telegraph - to which fulsome acknowledgement is given – journalist Ajmer Singh takes as his "line" the fact that Pachauri was on boards of oil and power utilities, with large carbon footprints, and got "crores-worth" (10 million rupees – about £140,000) of business for TERI from them.

Thus does Singh note that while Pachauri had advocated emission reductions at the recently concluded Copenhagen Climate Summit, "back home in India, he seems to be failing to uphold standards of propriety in his professional dealings."

We learn that, during his tenure, first as director from 1982, and then as director-general of The Energy Research Institute (TERI) since 2001, Pachauri was a member of the boards of the Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC), Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), three of India's biggest public sector energy companies, all of whom by the very nature of their business contribute heavily to greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions, according to the IPCC, are adding to the country's growing carbon footprint and hastening climate change.

TERI, in fact, entered into business dealings with these companies and allegedly benefitted from Pachauri's association with them. Pachauri's dealings, we are told, have also been noticed by the international media. Recently, The Sunday Telegraph of London had accused him of amassing a fortune using his links with carbon trading companies. Pachauri dismisses the report as "a pack of lies."

With a certain sense of irony, Pachauri is described as "the climate change hero" and Singh tells us he was an independent director on ONGC's board for three years between June 2006 and June 2009. During that time, he was entitled to first-class air travel when he attended meetings, five-star hotel stays and an allowance of 25,000 rupees for each meeting attended. This was in addition to having a say in the company's decision-making process. It was during this period that TERI had secured business contracts from ONGC.

This practice, writes Singh, is against ONGC's official code of conduct which says: "The directors and management shall act within the authority conferred upon them in the best interests of the company and will use their prudent judgment to avoid all situations, decisions or relationships which give or could give rise to conflict of interest or appear to conflict with their responsibilities within the company."

In his defence, Pachauri says he is now not on the board of any public sector undertaking, then declaring: "What is stated applies only for short periods in the past ... TERI is a not-for-profit organisation working for the welfare of society and its revenues cover costs and provide no private benefit to any party."

Singh is less than convinced. "Pachauri's position is untenable," he writes. As noted on this blog on 29 December, ONGC and TERI launched a joint business venture in March 2008 called ONGC-TERI Biotech Ltd (OTBL). This was while the TERI director-general was on its board. This entity's objective was the "large-scale application of microbial product oil zapper for clean-up of oil spills in farmers’ fields and around oil installations and treatment of oily sludge hazardous hydrocarbon waste."

When asked about this, Pachauri says "The joint venture (OTBL) was established largely at the insistence of ONGC. A decision to set up OTBL was taken only on October 31, 2006, at a board meeting that I did not even attend."

This evokes a somewhat jaundiced response from Singh: "Does that mean he wasn't even aware of the decision to set up OTBL?" OTBL was set up in 2008, and ONGC insiders state that all the work awarded to TERI was on a nomination basis and not through tenders, as is the accepted practice.

Climate change "hero" Pachauri hasn't finished though. He claims that 'TERI has not even charged OTBL any royalty for the technology provided to ONGC and other oil companies in India." Says our hero: "Any funds provided to TERI are purely to cover costs of activities carried out and performed successfully."

Unfortunately (for Pachauri) Singh has been speaking to a senior ONGC official. He confirms that close to Rs 30 crore (about £4 million) was paid directly and indirectly to TERI over a period of time for the execution of projects, which included bio-remediation, pipeline corrosion inhibitors and microbial enhanced oil recovery. OTBL was also involved in these transactions, he said.

Pachauri's response is a classic. He "denies" that TERI received the money, saying that OTBL "... is an independent entity with separate accounts, and any funding received from ONGC by OTBL is separate from any transactions involving OTBL and TERI." And OTBL is owned by?

Intriguingly, Singh notes, ONGC has two specialty labs — Institute of Reservoir Studies (IRS) in Ahmedabad and Institute of Biotechnology and Geo-Tectonics Studies (INBIGS) at Jorhat, Assam — to do what TERI was contracted to do. Both labs were set up to handle high- value, high- end and extremely specialised research.

Thus does Singh write that Pachauri concedes that the decision to set up OTBL was based on the work done jointly by TERI and IRS. "Pachauri may not see this as a conflict of interest, but former minister of state for petroleum and natural gas Santosh Gangwar said he had complained against it."

Gangwar actually demanded an inquiry against Pachauri in a letter I wrote to petroleum minister Murli Deora some time back. "This is a case of conflict of interest on Pachauri’s part. TERI is benefitting from ONGC," he says. Furthermore, the associate director of the environment NGO, Centre for Science and Environment, Chander Bhushan Singh says Pachauri and TERI need to come clean on their conflict of interest dealings with ONGC.

Needless to say, the noble Pachauri does not see it this way. "The presence of any TERI person on the board of a PSU (public service utility) cannot be seen as a conflict of interest just as the presence of a secretary to the government of India on TERI's governing council – which is the case – can be seen as serving the public interest."

On whether the association of anyone from TERI on PSU boards had served any public interest, he claimed: "It is [in] the larger public interest, with no private benefit to any party." Pachauri says projects were awarded to TERI because it served the objectives of PSUs.

In a delicious contradiction, Pachauri then says: "TERI's track record of successfully completing projects and serving the objectives of several PSUs is the reason why these were awarded to my organisation, with several of them going back in time well before I joined the boards of these organisations."

He then adds that, in "certain isolated incidents" he had recused (excluded himself) himself, but goes on to say: "The boards of the PSUs I have been associated with generally consist of over 20 members, and there is no way I could have influenced any decision within this structure even if I was a part of such a decision. "

So, he wasn't part of the decision, but even if he was, he couldn't possibly have influenced it ... honest Guv!

However, the OTBL issue is not unique. Pachauri was also on the board of another OTBL client — IOC — from January 1999 to September 2003. TERI signed a memorandum of collaboration with IOC to treat oil sludge, a waste product thrown up by oil refineries.

IOC uses the TERI-developed oil zapper technology to treat the waste. According to IOC, its mini-utility project for charging solar lanterns was launched in technical collaboration with TERI. Pachauri was also on the NTPC board from 2002 to 2005, and then from January 2006 onwards. In 2006, NTPC and TERI signed a MoU to implement rural electrification jointly through distributed generation schemes.

Under this project, TERI and NTPC identify suitable technology, and then fund and implement appropriate electricity delivery mechanisms.

Unsurprisingly, Pachauri had a reply for this too: "TERI took the initiative of providing that organisation with its biomass gasifier technology to set up power generation in villages that had no access to electricity. TERI did not charge any royalty for the technology developed over decades of research and development and was in fact reimbursed by NTPC sums that were far below costs incurred by TERI."

But, writes Singh, Pachauri's problems run deeper. The Sunday Telegraph of London, in a recent report, claimed Pachauri had established an "astounding worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC's policy recommendations".

Pachauri's answer to this is: "I haven't pocketed a penny from my association with companies and institutes ... All honoraria I get go to TERI and to its 'Light A Billion Lives' campaign for reaching solar power to people without electricity."

The fact that Pachauri concedes (to us) that he is a "full-time salaried employee of TERI" is not stated here and nor is it noted that the climate change "hero" has not, to this day, revealed the size of that salary. Instead, he is allowed to say: "My dealings are above board."

"The climate change hero is quick with his answers," concludes Singh, "but doubts over his links linger." When our next The Sunday Telegraph story is published, however, there will be fewer "doubts", and a lot more certainty about the nature of Dr Pachauri's money-making enterprises and the payments to TERI.

This is the man who tells us, "no part of these payments is received by me from TERI either directly or indirectly" – despite his being a "full-time salaried employee of TERI", a man living the life-style of a multi-millionare.

PACHAURI THREAD

A busy man

Seek and ye will find, as Bishop Hill notes. Our friendly part-time chairman of the IPCC, Dr Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, is quite a remarkable man. As well as his onerous post with the UN's IPCC, it seems he has a considerable number of other interests.

Dr Pachauri's main day job is, of course, Director-General of The Energy Research Institute (TERI) - which he has held since April 2001, having become its Director and head in 1981 when it was the Tata Energy Research Institute.

Intriguingly, for such an upstanding public servant though, he is also a strategic advisor to the private equity investment firm Pegasus Capital Advisors LP, which he became in February of this year. However, this is by no means Dr Pachauri's only foray into the world of finance. In December 2007, be became a member of the Senior Advisory Board of Siderian ventures based in San Francisco.

This is a venture capital business owned by the Dutch multinational business incubator and operator in sustainable technology, Tendris Holding, itself part-owned by electronics giant Philips. It acquired a minority interest in January 2009 in order to "explore new business opportunities in the area of sustainability." As a member of the Senior Advisory Board of Siderian, Dr Pachauri is expected to provide the Fund and its portfolio companies "with access, standing and industry exposure at the highest level."

In June 2008, Dr Pachauri became a member of the Board of the Nordic bank Glitnir, which that year launched the The Sustainable Future Fund, Iceland, a new savings account "designed to help the environment." Then, the fund was expected to accumulate up to €4 billion within a few years, thus becoming one of the largest private funds supporting research into sustainable development. That same month of June 2008, Dr Pachauri also became Chairman of the Indochina Sustainable Infrastructure Fund. Under its CEO Rick Mayo Smith, it was looking to raise at least $100 billion from the private sector.

The previous April 2008 was also a busy month. Dr Pachauri joined the Board of the Credit Suisse Research Institute, Zurich and became a member of the Advisory Group for the Rockefeller Foundation, USA. Then, in May he became a member of the Board of the International Risk Governance Council in Geneva. This, despite its name, is primarily concerned with the promotion of bioenergy, drawing funding from electricity giants EON and EDF. But, not content with that, Dr Pachauri also became Chairman and Member of the Advisory Group at the Asian Development Bank that May. At some time, he also became a Member of the Climate Change Advisory Board of Deutsche Bank AG.

Dr Pachauri also keeps some ties with his roots. In his capacity as a former railway engineer, he is a member of the Policy Advisory Panel for the French national railway system, SNCF and has been since April 2007. Long before that, Dr Pachauri became the President of the Asian Energy Institute, a position he took on in 1992.

One of his most interesting - and possibly contentious - positions, however, is his previous directorship with and current post as "scientific advisor" to GloriOil Limited. This is a company he set up himself in late 2005 - two years after he had become chairman of the IPCC. He is described as its "founder". It was set up in Houston, Texas, to exploit patented processes developed by TERI - of which Pachauri is Director-General - known as "microbial enhanced oil recovery" (MEOR), designed to improve the production of mature oilfields. It now has annual revenues of $2.5 to 5 million.

A few eyebrows were raised in June 2007 when Kleiner Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm that preaches the need to invest in green technologies and reduce global warming, invested in GloriOil.

The firm had joined with TERI - Dr Pachauri's employer - and private equity investor GTI to invest $10 million in the company. Yet Kleiner's leading partner John Doerr had led a crusade to "stop the damage caused by global warming" and had publicly broken down in tears over the issue (see video below).



Investing in oil exploration, it was observed at the time, makes it possible to drill oil more efficiently, and produce greenhouse emissions in even greater amounts, and stands in contradiction to the firm's stated public mission. No one mentioned Dr Pachauri's founding role in the company – or that he was currently chairman of the IPCC.

Interestingly, Doerr had first met Pachauri (along with Gore) at the San Francisco Four Seasons in May 2006, at a meeting of 50 environmental "thought leaders" organised by Kleiner so that the partners could "brainstorm with them about opportunities." A year later, Doerr was investing in Pachauri's company.

Like Doerr, running with the hare and the hounds, Pachauri also serves as Director of the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Japan. And, crucially, he is a Member of the External Advisory Board of Chicago Climate Exchange, Inc. This exchange is North America's only cap and trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects world-wide, brokering carbon credits.

Yet Dr Pachauri is also a member of FEOP (Far East Oil Price) Advisory Board, managed by the Oil Trade Associates, Singapore, from April 1997 onwards. This is part of the so-called ForwardMarketCurve - a "ground breaking, all-broker methodology for achieving robust and accurate price discovery in forward commodity markets" - especially, as the name would imply, oil and petroleum products.

Very much in an allied field, he served as a Member of the International Advisory Board of Toyota Motors until 31 March 2009.

That cleared the way, presumably, for an announcement in March 2009, when Pachauri also accepted a post as head of the Yale Climate and Energy Institute (YCEI). We were told than Pachauri has chaired the IPCC since 2002 and has been director general of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) since 2001. "He will retain these positions while taking up his new half-time position at Yale," said the university. Er?

Still, this will make a change from his illustrious past. From 1989 to 1990, he served as Chairman of the International Association for Energy Economics. He served as an Independent Director of NTPC Ltd (National Thermal Power Corp), from 30 January 2006 to January 2009. This is the largest power generation company in India. Before that, he served as non-official Part-time Director of NTPC Ltd, from August 2002 to August 2005. He was also a Director of the Indian Oil Corporation - India's largest commercial enterprise - until 28 August 2003. Dr Pachauri then served as a Director of Gail India Ltd, India's largest natural gas transportation company, from August 2003 to 26 October 2004.

However, Dr Pachauri currently serves as Member of National Environmental Council, Government of India under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister of India. He also serves as a member of the lobbying organisations, the International Solar Energy Society, the World Resources Institute and the World Energy Council. He has been member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister of India since July 2001 and also serves as Member of the Oil Industry Restructuring Group, for the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India.

Dr Pachauri also served as Director of Consulting and Applied Research Division at the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad. He served as Visiting Professor, Resource Economics at the College of Mineral and Energy Resources, West Virginia University. He was also a Senior Visiting Fellow of Resource Systems Institute, East - West Center, USA. He is a Visiting Research Fellow at The World Bank, Washington, DC and McCluskey Fellow at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, Yale University.

One wonders how he finds the time to save the planet. James Delingpole wonders too.

PACHAURI THREAD

Pachauri in expenses scam

Not only has Dr R K Pachauri, chairman of the UN's IPCC been developing a very significant portfolio of private interests, evidence is mounting that he has been carrying out his business activities for these organisations under the guise of his UN duties, and charging the expenses to the UN.

This has emerged in part from an official document published by the IPCC Secretariat late August 2008 in response to public questions about Pachauri's "carbon footprint" arising from his globe-trotting activities.

Under the title "Outreach activities carried out by the IPCC Chairman", covering his itinerary for January 2007 to July 2008, the main purpose was to reassure the public that, while engaged on UN activities he had indeed flown many miles, in each case the UN had paid "carbon offsets" for the flights – details of which were listed against each "official" engagement.

However, unwittingly, this document has revealed more than either the UN – and certainly Dr Pachauri – had intended. It provides effective proof that, on more than one occasion Pachauri was indeed using UN funding for his own commercial interests.

One egregious example of this comes on 7 July 2008, when – in amongst his 443,243 miles flown in the 19-month period - Dr Pachauri is recorded by the UN as having travelled 1,432 miles from Abu Dhabi, where he was attending the Zayed Future Energy Prize Award, to visit Delhi for what is officially described as "Visit of Basque delegation to TERI".

There, he meets José Antonio -Tontxu- Campos Granados, Minister Of Education, Universities And Research and Esther Larrañaga Galdos, Minister Of Environment And Land Use Planning, both from the Basque Government. No other business is recorded that day, or at all until 14 July when, at the UN's expense, he flies 3,446 miles to Vienna for a UN ceremony.

However, while the UN records this as official business, the Basque delegation is perhaps unaware of this. On one of its own official websites, it records that the delegation visited the TERI offices to meet its Director General, Dr RK Pachauri, in order to sign a collaboration agreement between TERI and their own research institute, the Basque Institute Centre on Climate Change (BC3) – which had only been set up the previous April.

Interestingly, the research director of BC3 is Professor Anil Markandya, formerly of Bath University and lead author for Working Group III (on mitigation of climate impacts) in the IPCC 4th Assessment and a contributing author for Working Group II (on identifying the impacts of climate change). Markandya was, therefore, working with Pachauri's IPCC on the report which gained his boss a share in the Nobel Prize.

Whether a fee was paid by the Basques to TERI is not clear, but the deal is agreed for three years, amounting to adding to BC3 staff, from September, a series of "top-level international experts" from TERI, while a number of Masters students are sent to India.

There, we find that they are to partake in a new Masters programme "to train students in sustainable development", taught at the TERI University based in Delhi. The programme is to be funded to the tune of $900,000 by the Chicago-based John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation which, as we reported, also sponsors Pachauri's TERI North America operation in Washington.

Another "partner" to the programme is, incidentally, the University of East Anglia, home of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) of Climategate fame.

Whatever the finer details of the arrangement with the Basques might have been, however, what is amply clear is that their official visit to Delhi on 7 July to meet Pachauri in Delhi had nothing whatsoever to do with UN business – and everything to do with Pachauri's personal position as Director General of TERI.

For that, at UN expense, Pachauri took a 1,432 miles from Abu Dhabi to get to Delhi and then a 3,446-mile trip to Vienna, totalling 4,878 miles. The direct route from Abu Dhabi to Vienna is 2,637 miles, with Pachauri's private business adding over 2,000 miles to his journey.

Whether there would have been other arrangements in place for Pachauri to have returned home to India in the week that elapsed between 7 and 14 July when he was due in Vienna, we cannot tell. But the fact is that Pachauri's official place of work as chairman of the IPCC is Geneva, where its offices are based. He had no reason to go to Delhi other than on private business, yet he was falsely recorded as representing the UN.

In most jurisdictions, this kind of deception is regarded as theft and most employers treat gross misuse of expenses as a sackable offence. For the gifted and so far untouchable Dr Pachauri, however, this seems to be just another perk of the job.

PACHAURI THREAD

Pachauri: another day, another dollar

An earnest British citizen, desperate to get in touch with the Asian Energy Institute (AEI) will be pleased to learn that there is a London number they can call, the same one they would use if they were trying to contact TERI-Europe. Conveniently, R K Pachauri's London outpost of Empire in London just happens to represent this organisation in the UK.

Interestingly enough, R K Pachauri's TERI organisation in India just happens to represent the organisation in India and points east – although that is hardly surprising as it shares the same address and TERI hosts the secretariat. R K Pachauri also happens to be its president, a post he has occupied since 1992.

No doubt, if pressed, the same R K Pachauri – a "full-time salaried employee" of TERI – will aver that not a single penny goes into his own pocket as a result of his service, but the same cannot be said of TERI. It has benefitted hugely from its association – although the income so gained will have nothing to do with ensuring that the unspecified salary of R K Pachauri is paid on time.

As an illustration of the way things do work, the AEI in the late 1990s managed to tap into one of the world's great milch cows, the European Union, and prevailed upon it to award it a contract to carry out a study on the "Deployment of sustainable energy systems: an agenda for cooperation, 1997-2000."

Cost-conscious taxpayers will be pleased to learn that it was a shoe-string project, which aimed "to capitalize upon research undertaken in European countries in the fields of renewable energy, and mitigation of air pollution, through building knowledge networks between European and Asian counterparts."

Rather than undertaken through tiresome primary research, this was effected through "preparation of discussion papers, workshops and posting all information and papers on a dedicated web site, and also through a newsletter titled Sustainable Energy Systems in Asia." Thus, it only cost a paltry €300,000. As the project was primarily undertaken by TERI, with involvement of four AEI members from China, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Thailand, one must assume that the bulk of this miserable amount of cash went to TERI.

Nevertheless, this points up a – if not the - primary role of the AEI – what is known in the NGO trade as a "funding vehicle". It is a membership organisation with impressive credentials and a worthy background, which can Hoover up donor funding in return for obscure projects. It then distributes it to its members, less a small percentage to cover overheads, in this case that also going to a member – TERI – as it hosts the secretariat.

To be fair, though, TERI, with its full-time salaried director-general R K Pachauri, actually started the whole thing off. It emerged in 1987 from the Asian Relations Commemorative Conference, conveniently – for R K Pachauri - held in New Delhi, India. And, just as conveniently, it recommended establishing an Asian collaborative research entity on energy.

Quick off the mark, the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) – which just happened to be based in New Delhi - responded by taking the initiative to launch the AEI, supported financially by the Government of India. It has since grown to include representatives from 14 countries in Asia, two from outside the region and 13 associate members.

The Institute is registered in India and has "a unique status and a separate bank account." Conveniently – for R K Pachauri – the chairman of its board happens to be Dr Emil Salim (pictured), from Indonesia who, as we noted earlier is also a member of the Asia-Pacific Forum for Environment and Development.

One of its major activities is sponsoring the "Partnership Initiatives for Knowledge Network and Capacity Building" – in conjunction with TERI as a major partner. Salim also has a seat on the Advisory Group on Climate Change for the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which happens to be chaired by R K Pachauri.

Since its inception, the AEI has been remarkably successful in its role as a funding vehicle, attracting funds from the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), the World Bank, the IMF and the Japan Gas Association. It has received money from the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in Japan and the Japanese National Oil Corporation (JNOC) – Big Oil money once again.

Other funders have included the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – a body with which R K Pachauri has some connection - Deutsche Gesselschaft Fur Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, United Nations University-Japan; ADB-Manila – another body with which R K Pachauri has some connection - GISPRI-Japan and the Ministry of External Affairs, India.

Money has also flowed from USAID, the UN Conference on Environment and Development, ECOFUND, CICERO-Norway, DANIDA-Denmark and the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. Another major donor has been the Rockefeller Foundation, which has as a member of its advisory board a certain R K Pachauri. The Foundation, incidentally, has been quite generous to TERI, recently giving it $200,000 to organise the 2008 Delhi Sustainable Development Summit.

When it comes to inventiveness in developing funding vehicles, however, AEI – under the presidency of R K Pachauri – has clearly acquired some of its master's skills. In November 2005, it became the Asian representative for the Vienna-based Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP). The secretariat is now conveniently located at TERI's head office in New Delhi.

This is certainly convenient for Dr Ligia Noronha (pictured), the coordinator of REEEP for South Asia. She also happens to be a director of TERI - and the secretary of the AEI. Dr Noronha, incidentally, happens to sit on the external review committee of Shell Oil - more money from Big Oil in the coffers.

British taxpayers will also be pleased to note that the main donor for REEEP is the United Kingdom, our friendly Foreign and Commonwealth Office again. Since its inception in 2003, the UK has contributed nearly £9m, with another £2.5 million in funding for the financial year ending April 2009 - part of a 3-year further financial commitment by the UK.

The organisation also receives financial contributions from Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, the United States and the European Union. With such support, this "funding vehicle" had funded four projects in the region up to 2008 and five more projects were under implementation, with an average funding for each of about €0.1 million.

And, of course, the work is undertaken by members, of which TERI is one. Thus, so far, TERI has worked on a "Framework for Renewable Energy Certificate System in Maharashtra" and another REEEP-funded project called "Capacity Building for Regulators and Policy Makers in Andhra Pradesh". In completing these, it was undoubtedly helped by R K Pachauri, who is a REEEP governing board member.

All of this, of course, is perfectly legal and above board – it could hardly be otherwise with British (and US) taxpayers contributing so generously. And not a single penny goes into the pocket of R K Pachauri. Any money which finds its way into New Delhi goes to his beloved institute, from which R K Pachauri gains absolutely no benefit – so he tells us.

One really does wonder, though, how the impoverished R K Pachauri manages to finance his multi-million home at 160 Golf Links, New Delhi, much less buy his $1000 suits and pay his servants' wages.

PACHAURI THREAD

Keeping it in the family

An article in The Times in March last year appears to have excited little interest, even though the subject was of some concern to most of us. "Climate-change damage may double cost of insurance," the headline screamed, with the strap declaring: "Weather-related problems have been underestimated by scientists."

These were the supposed findings of the Association of British Insurers (ABI) reflecting "a growing belief in the industry that the consequences of changes in weather patterns have been underestimated," but they were not alone in their dire predictions.

Also mentioned was a forthcoming (at that time) report from an agency called the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), based near Vienna in Austria.

This was to forecast that there were financial implications for governments as well, showing that the EU Solidarity Fund, which is worth €1 billion and is supposed to cover "uninsurable risk" for government-owned infrastructure such as roads and bridges, is not enough to cover the damage caused by the more frequent storms and flooding that are expected. The study, incidentally, was funded by the EU Commission.

But this was by no means the only foray into climate change for the IIASA, which has a very active climate change programme, being one of the leading research institutes on global environmental change. And one particular researcher, Dr Anthony Patt, was lead author on a report, "Estimating least-developed countries’ vulnerability to climate-related extreme events over the next 50 years," and it is fair to say that a constant theme emerging is the need for public money to support those who suffer from climate-related catastrophes.

Such themes are also of very great interest to Dr R K Pachauri and his pet institute, TERI, and it may come as no surprise that he and Dr Patt are often seen sharing the same platform or, at the very least, singing from the same hymn sheet. But references to Patt are very often seen alongside another Pachauri – not Rajendra but Shonali Pachauri, who seems to share his concerns about climate change.

This, though, should be unsurprising. Dr Shonali Pachauri is the deputy programme leader of the population and climate change (PCC) programme at the IIASA, and has been since 2008, having joined IIASA as a research scholar in October 2005.

Incidentally, she also works one-third of her time with the Global Energy Assessment (GEA) in the energy programme, as of 2008.

Given that they are covering the same territory, it is also unsurprising that the GEA and representatives from Dr R K Pachauri's TERI often share the same platform, and there is obviously some degree of liaison between the two operations.

In fact, the "liaison" might be closer than the public record indicates as there is a certain relationship between Drs R K Pachauri and S Pachauri. Shonali is, in fact, Rjaendra's youngest (of two) daughter.

Shonali is undoubtedly well qualified for her current posts, She has a background in energy and environmental economics and received her PhD from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) in 2002. She also holds a master's degree in environmental and resource economics from University College London.

However, it can do RK Pachauri no harm at all having his well-qualified daughter in such an important and prestigious post, working in the same field. One is almost tempted to call the old firm, "Pachauri & daughter", so closely allied are they in the climate change industry.

As for the elder daughter, she is Rashmi Pachauri – and often calls herself Rashmi Pachauri-Rajan. She, like her mother, Dr Saroj Pachauri, works on population issues, the latter being regional director, South and East Asia Regional Office, Population Council, working out of New Delhi. Mother and daughter have at times worked together.

Until relatively recently, Rashmi seems to have been based in New Delhi – and may well have been there while a visiting scientist, a certain Andy Reisinger, was based there, helping her father on the IPCC synthesis report. Reisinger, however, moved back to New Zealand were it seems, for not obvious reason, Rashmi Pachauri currently lives (spool down - pg 135).

Is there a connection? We could not possibly say, but with Andy currently on paternity leave, it would be interesting to know the name of the mother of his recently-born child. New Zealand is a small country and someone must have that little bit of information. It certainly would be interesting to learn whether Dr R K Pachauri's family connections are even wider than we thought.

PACHAURI THREAD

Pachauri: the Deutsche Bank connection

Attendees at the inaugural Deutsche Bank Leadership Forum in Berlin on 4 June this year were there for a specific purpose. Unashamedly, the "DB Leadership Forum", as the Bank likes to call it, exists solely to discuss "Business opportunities in addressing climate change".

Would that they knew it, one of their keynote speakers was a living testament to the "business opportunities" so afforded. This was none other than Dr Rajendera Pachauri, whose TERI business was being paid €100,000 (that we know of) for his membership of the Climate Change Advisory Board of Deutsche Bank. Whether TERI was paid separately for its Director General's guest appearance in Berlin, we have not been told.

However, it would appear that Dr Pachauri is not exactly heavily taxed by his duties for the Advisory Board. On its inception in April 2008, its members were scheduled to meet with the Bank's own Environmental Steering Committee (ESC) twice a year.

We are told also that, in addition to these two main meetings, the two committees conduct an ongoing dialog in smaller committees dealing with specific topics, such as energy efficiency.

Nevertheless, even the generous payment for Dr Pauchauri's services seems not to have been sufficient for the chairman of the IPCC. For its first meeting on 2 April 2008, according to official UN documentation, Dr Pachauri also claimed this meeting as part of his "outreach" activities on behalf of the IPCC.

To attend this meeting, Dr Pachauri flew 3,676 miles from Addis Ababa to London on 30 March, where the business recorded is the advisory board meeting, a meeting with Mr Caio Koch-Weser vice chairman of the Bank and a meeting with Emma Duncan, deputy editor of the Economist. From there, Pachauri flies – again at IPCC expense – a further 924 miles, this time to Budapest for the 37th Session of the IPCC Bureau on 6 – 10 April.

On the face of it, therefore, this appears to be another example of Dr Pachauri working for his own commercial interests while booking his expenses to the IPCC.

You could, perhaps, take the view that Pachauri's meeting with the Economist's Emma Duncan might have justified the trip – except that Duncan does not seem to have been acting in a journalistic capacity. She is perhaps more concerned with the forthcoming Economist conference, entitled, "The Carbon Economy: New Opportunities for Green Business".

At the time, this was being organised by the Economist, to be held on 17-18 November 2009 in Washington. Pachauri was to be a keynote speaker – his fee is not recorded.

On that day of 2 April, though, Pauchauri, has yet other interests. His separate meeting with Mr Caio Koch-Weser, clearly yields dividends.

On 26 June, less than two months after the meeting, Deutsche Bank announces the launch of a Deutsche Bank Scholarship for the MBA (Infrastructure) programme at the TERI University in Delhi. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this effect is signed by Dr R K Pachauri, the Chancellor, TERI University and Mr. Caio Koch-Weser, vice chairman, Deutsche Bank Group.

Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Koch-Weser says, "I am delighted that Deutsche Bank has joined hands with TERI."

The assiduous courting of Koch-Weser has paid off. Pachauri's meeting with the Bank's vice-chairman on 2 April was by no means the first. They also meet on 3 October 2007, at the international lecture by The Royal Academy of Engineering in London, and also with the Academy president, Lord Browne of Madingley, who is also later co-opted on the Bank's advisory board. Koch-Weser and Pachauri then meet on 17 January 2008, this time at the Carbon Trust Winter Lecture, also in London.

Both of these meetings, incidentally, are claimed as part of the IPCC chairman's "outreach" activities. And, strangely, there is no further record of a Deutsche Bank advisory board meeting until 14 November 2008. We have not yet been advised whether Pachauri claimed the expenses from the UN.

For the record, they do meet yet again, at the World Sustainable Development Forum on 5-7 February 2009, where the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit of 2009 is holding a conference under the title "Towards Copenhagen: an equitable and ethical approach". Koch-Weser, by the way, is chaired by Mr Nik Gowing, main presenter of the BBC World Service.


As for Deutsche Bank, it actually has four billion reasons for its interest in climate change and Dr Pachuari, something which its website so clearly explains.

Having identified climate change as "one of the mega-trends that would drive the global asset management business for the next generation and beyond," it has become "one of the leading climate change investors in the world." As of March 2009, it had approximately $4 billion under its management.

At a mere €100,000 - so far declared - they might think Pachauri comes relatively cheap.

PACHAURI THREAD

Big Carbon

What, asks Christopher Booker, in his column today, links the Copenhagen conference with the steelworks closing in Redcar?

The connection is Dr Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian railway engineer millionaire businessman, who also happens to be the chairman of the UN's IPCC, which is holding its slugfest in Copenhagen at the moment. Before he became thus elevated, Pachauri was made in April 2001 Director-General of the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI), after having become its Director and head in 1981.

As its name might imply, there is a link between the Institute and the Tata Group. But it is no casual link. TERI was actually set up by a consortium of Tata Group companies, initially operating from the Tata Group headquarters. That firm, incidentally, can trace its origins back to 1868, when its founder, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, established a trading company in Bombay, dealing in opium.

But from its humble if profitable beginnings as an opium trader, the Tata group, of course, is now owner of Corus Steel, which two weeks ago mothballed the steelworks in Redcar, throwing 1,700 workers on the dole.

This is also the same Corus which, as we reported last week, potentially stands to make £1.2 billion over the next three years by cashing in on now surplus EU carbon credits given to the firm, plus cash paid through the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), gained by transferring Redcar's steel production to India.

Tata stands to gain from the CDM from being allocated credits for notional carbon "savings" gained from investing in a new steel plant in the Indian province of Orissa. Coincidentally, this will initially produce 3 million tons of hot rolled steel – exactly the capacity of the mothballed Redcar plant.

In another "strange but true" coincidence, the CDM scheme – which was set up to implement the 1997 Kyoto Protocol - is administered by the UN, of which Pachauri is a senior official. He is also one of the main cheer-leaders for the carbon trading scheme represented by the CDM.

Of course there is absolutely no posiible suggestion – as Booker makes clear - that Pachauri benefits personally in any possible way from Tata's exploitation of the various carbon trading schemes set up, even if it is the IPCC which provides the recommendations which drive those schemes. That is just a coincidence.

Nor can the railway engineer help it if last year, on official figures, buying and selling the right to emit CO2 was worth $126 billion across the world. This market, now enriching many of our leading financial institutions (not to mention Al Gore), is growing so fast that within a few years it is predicted to be worth trillions, making carbon the most valuable traded commodity in the world. Pachauri just helps make it happen out of the kindness of his heart.

Nevertheless, Pachauri is clearly nervous of the connection between Tata and the institute it so generously established. Not only is there no mention of the connection on the institute's official web site, it is also curiously absent from Pachauri's personal website and his own carefully reworked cv, which can be downloaded from the site.

In fact, in yet another of those coincidences which seems to dog Pachauri, a year after he had been appointed chairman of the IPCC, the Tara Energy Research Institute was quietly renamed as The Energy Research Institute. The only overt link now is a listing of the politically safe(er) Tata Tea Limited – a wholly-owned division of the Tata Group – as one of the corporate sponsors.

Nevertheless, nothing had really changed. "We have not severed our past relationship with the Tatas. It's only (the change of name) for convenience," said communication manager Annapurna Vancheswaran back in January 2003.

However, the relabelling did leave the good doctor free to do his good works at the helm of the IPCC and TERI, without any obvious connection with Tata, thus allowing him to parade himself as a "scientist" rather than head of a multi-million dollar conglomerate set up by a multi-billion dollar conglomerate. And conglomerate TERI became. Pachauri has expanded his portfolio to become Director-General of The Energy and Resources Institute in the United States – an organisation which, through another of those curious coincidences, also bears the initials TERI.

One of the key directors of his US Board is Prof Timothy G Gregoire, who is J P Weyerhaeuser, Jr Professor of Forest Management, School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. And in yet another of those coincidences, Dr Pachauri has just been nominated to lead the newly established Yale Climate and Energy Institute – at Yale University.

Sadly, there seems to be no end to these coincidences, as Dr Pachauri is also a trustee of another organisation, which just happens to be called TERI-Europe, with offices in Albert Grove, London.

When in London, Pachauri doubtless meets up with fellow trustee Sir John Houghton, also a member of the IPCC, former Chief Executive at the Met Office and founder of the Hadley Centre – creator alongside the CRU of the hadCRUT temperature dataset on which the IPCC relies for its doom-laden warnings. And, to keep them company, they have another doyen of the climate industry, fellow trustee Sir Crispin Tickell GCMG KCVO.

But, in one more of those entirely coincidental coincidences, we see that TERI-Europe has been quite busy completing a study which will bring warm feelings to the redundant workers of Redcar. This was a study on "Developing clean development mechanism projects for renewable energy technologies" which – in another coincidence which will have the Redcar Redundants leaping with joy – was sponsored by Mr Miliband's Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

This is, of course, terribly, terribly convenient – if not coincidental – because in 2006, British Petroleum announced it was funding TERI in India to the tune of $9.4 million to produce bio-diesel from Jatropha Curcas, a non-edible oil bearing crop – which could benefit from a renewable CDM.

The project – prop Dr Rajendra Pachauri – was expected to take 10 years and would cultivate around 8,000 hectares of land currently designated as wasteland with Jatropha and install all the equipment necessary for seed crushing, oil extraction and processing - to produce 9 million litres of bio-diesel per annum.

A mere year later, Tata Chemicals – a wholly owned division of the Tata Group - announced plans to "foray into biodiesel", disclosing that it was already in talks for securing the required raw material from "several leading plantation groups" that were engaged in growing Jatropha and pongamia plants on a commercial scale.

That, without any possible doubt, just has to be a coincidence – just as is the fact that the closure of the Redcar plant will help the UK meet the emission reduction targets that are currently being negotiated under the aegis of Dr Pachauri in Copenhagen.

And all this becomes possible because Dr Pachauri's friends have performed a miracle of our time, transforming carbon dioxide, a gas upon which all life on earth depends, into a "pollutant", worth more than diamonds, let alone oil. Forget Big Oil writes Booker. The new world power is Big Carbon. And many of those now gathered in Copenhagen are making a great deal of money out of it.

But, of course, Dr Pachauri is not one of them - absolutely not, no question of it ... quite improper even to think of the idea. Devil's Kitchen has got it totally wrong. Even if Pachauri's personal fortune (a closely-guarded secret) was well into seven figures - he is a "scientist". They have nothing to do with making money. Their only concern is with saving the planet. Believe me.

PACHAURI THREAD

A non-apology

Readers of The Sunday Telegraph (hard copy and online) may be surprised to see what appears to be an apology in the current edition, relating to Rajendra Pachauri (illustrated above).

As far as the paper goes, however, it is actually a non-apology – as a careful study of the words will reveal to anyone with a modicum of intelligence (a dwindling band, one fears).

The text starts off by saying that we (i.e., The Sunday Telegraph) published an article about Pachauri and his business interests – as written by Booker and myself. Needless to say, the article was sound, all the substantive facts are correct and the paper stands by them.

However, this is not the name of the game. Pachauri wants an "apology", in so many words. The detail is irrelevant. All he wants is something he can tout around to his friends and supportive media, which he can project as a retraction.

Using the biggest crooks in the libel business, known to Private Eye readers as Carter Fuck, Pachauri has done a "no-win, no-fee" deal which, with a special insurance scheme introduced under the last administration, enables these sharks to go to law and stack up colossal fees. Recently, they represented a minor celebrity in a libel case, gaining £15,000 in damages – for which they then charged £350,000 costs.

The difficulty facing the paper is that, when having to deal with an unethical law firm which has been given a writ to stack up open-ended costs, going to law to fight even a good case can be perilous and expensive. Even a win stands to cost several hundred thousand pounds, in your own costs. If you lose, the costs can run to millions.

Faced with this blackmail, it is easier for the newspapers to give a "non-apology" and cut their losses. So far, Carter Fuck have stacked up £100,000 in costs and are seeking recovery from the paper. No damages have been claimed or offered, so the only financial beneficiaries are the lawyers

Now look at the "non-apology". The paper says: "It was not intended to suggest that Dr Pachauri was corrupt or abusing his position as head of the IPCC". That is true ... so true that the paper did not actually suggest that Pachauri "was corrupt or abusing his position as head of the IPCC".

Booker and I might have intended to do so, and I certainly did on this blog – and more. I called the man a liar, and stand by that. But we are not the paper. And it is the paper that is taking the rap as the publisher. It "legalled" the piece and it was libel-proof, so much so that Carter Fuck has not sustained any of Pachauri's original complaint – dismissed as a "rant".

Nevertheless, these gold-diggers keep coming back, and back and back, each time stacking up the costs. To get rid of them, the paper can say that it "did not intend ... ", etc., without any problem. It neither intended nor did so in fact. It can also say, without a problem, that: "we accept KPMG found Dr Pachauri had not made 'millions of dollars' in recent years."

The paper can do so because KPMG "finding" that "Dr Pachauri had not made 'millions of dollars'" is a matter of fact. KPMG did so find. If you wish too believe that means Pachauri didn't make millions of dollars, that is your affair. But the crucial thing is that the paper has not apologised for accusing Pachauri of making millions of dollars. That accusation stands uncorrected. The paper simply accepts that KPMG has a claims in this respect.

So, the paper ends up making two statements of fact, on which basis it then "apologises" to Pachauri "for any embarrassment caused," an anodyne phrasing that does not even admit to having caused any embarrassment. This is pure, meaningless bullshit.

But the game is to play. Already the Pauchauri-supporting Hindustani Times has made its play. Thus you can see how the game actually works. And this sort of thing will go on for as long as the papers allow it – rolling over instead of fighting. If the papers got together and demanded a change of law, they would probably get it. This might even happen, as patience is running out.

In the meantime, Pachauri, his claque and the warmist fellow-travellers will be making hay. But if that is what they need to do to "prove" their case and protect their man, it tells you all you need to know about them. My only regret is that the lawyers are claiming about two hundred times more for stitching up the paper than I was paid for the piece. That should also tell you something.

COMMENT THREAD

Pachauri: admits to $300,000 in payments

In a press release purporting to rebut our Sunday Telegraph piece, Dr Pachauri's TERI – of which he is Director General - admits to receiving over $300,000 for "services rendered by Pachauri."

This, however, only covers "some of the payments made to TERI". It includes €100,000 from the Deutsche Bank, $25,000 from Credit Suisse and $80,000 from Toyota Motors. The institute also received $48,750 from Yale University, $4,425 from the Asian Development Bank - which has given loans to Tata - and €1,200 from the French electricity giant EDF. At current conversion rates, that totals $302,746.

The periods for which the payments were made are not specified and neither are the precise "services rendered" identified. For some organisations, such as Yale University, Pachauri performs more than one service – and his current post as head of the Climate and Energy Institute has only just started.

Pachauri's institute denies that it has received any payment from the Risk Governance Council in Geneva, the Chicago Climate Exchange, or the New York Investment Fund Pegasus for which he is "strategic advisor". This is difficult to believe in respect of the latter two, but the phrasing of the "rebuttal" does not rule out the possibility of benefits in kind being offered by these companies.

No mention is made of Pachauri's other current posts. Thus, we know nothing of payments (if any) from GloriOil, Siderian ventures, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Nordic Glitnir Bank, the Indochina Sustainable Infrastructure Fund, SNCF, his work as a Hindustan Times columnist, the Asian Energy Institute, FEOP (Far East Oil Price) Advisory Board, the International Solar Energy Society, the World Resources Institute or the World Energy Council.

Nor do we learn whether payments were made for Dr Pachauri's work for the Indian government, in particular the National Environmental Council, the Economic Advisory Council and the Oil Industry Restructuring Group. Nor is it specified whether he is paid for his role on the Governing Council of the India Habitat Centre. Other notable omissions are, as admitted by Pachauri, the "sometimes pretty generous honoraria, for giving talks in various places" - which themselves could amount to millions of dollars.

As to why TERI's (Indian) accounts are not published, the reason given is that TERI has tax-exempt status in every country in which it operates. "Such status is granted on the basis of proper auditing of accounts and proper scrutiny of documents." Nonetheless, accounts are published in the UK and the US relating to local operations, but not in India.

The US IRS return for the TERI-NA operation in Washington identified a total revenue of $66,701 against expenses of $121,810, leaving a loss on the trading year ending in 2009 of $55,109. The expenses included two remittances totalling $54,000 to TERI India. Also identified is a payment made to Dr Pachauri from a "related organization" – which is not identified – of $45,791.

This is the only public record of which we are aware which identifies a direct payment to Dr Pachauri. Neither Pachauri nor TERI have chosen to reveal payments made to him by TERI or his salary and other emoluments from the IPCC.

Despite that, TERI is claiming as "unfounded and false" our charge that Pachauri holds posts in a number of organisations, including Credit Suisse Bank, and is silent about the money he earns, "which must run into millions of dollars". Yet nothing so far offered by way of evidence would even begin to rebut that charge.

And neither has there been any attempt so far to explain how a UN official can work on a fee-paying basis for organisations such as the Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse, without there being a potential conflict of interest.

PACHAURI THREAD

The end is nigh

Less than a week after he claimed the IPCC's credibility had increased as a result of its handling of the "Glaciergate" scandal, Pachauri's own personal credibility lies in tatters as The Times accuses him of a direct lie.

This is about when he first became aware of the false claim over the melting glaciers, Pachauri's version on 22 January being that he had only known about it "for a few days" – i.e., after it had appeared in The Sunday Times.

However, Ben Webster writes that a prominent science journalist, Pallava Bagla – who works for the Science journal (and NDTV as its science correspondent) - claims that last November he had informed Pachauri that Graham Cogley, a professor at Ontario Trent University and a leading glaciologist, had dismissed the 2035 date as being wrong by at least 300 years. Pachauri had replied: "I don't have anything to add on glaciers."

Bagla interviewed Dr Pachauri again this week and asked him why he had decided to overlook the error before the Copenhagen summit. In the taped interview, he asked: "I pointed it out [the error] to you in several e-mails, several discussions, yet you decided to overlook it. Was that so that you did not want to destabilise what was happening in Copenhagen?"

Dr Pachauri replied: "Not at all, not at all. As it happens, we were all terribly preoccupied with a lot of events. We were working round the clock with several things that had to be done in Copenhagen. It was only when the story broke, I think in December, we decided to, well, early this month — as a matter of fact, I can give you the exact dates — early in January that we decided to go into it and we moved very fast."

According to Pachauri, "... within three or four days, we were able to come up with a clear and a very honest and objective assessment of what had happened. So I think this presumption on your part or on the part of any others is totally wrong. We are certainly never — and I can say this categorically — ever going to do anything other than what is truthful and what upholds the veracity of science."

Without even Bagla's input, we know this to be lies. Apart from anything else, there was the crisis meeting under the aegis of UNEP - which we reported on Thursday – which concluded that the 2035 claim "does not appear to be based upon any scientific studies and therefore has no foundation".

Separately, we have Syed Hasnain, while stressing that he was not involved in drafting the IPCC report, claiming that he noticed some of the mistakes when he first read the relevant section in 2008.

That was also the year he joined TERI in Delhi, headed by Dr Pachauri. Then, he says, he realised that the 2035 prediction was based on an interview he gave to the New Scientist magazine in 1999. But, he claims, he did not tell Pachauri because he was not working for the IPCC and was busy with his own programmes.

"I was keeping quiet as I was working here," he said. "My job is not to point out mistakes. And you know the might of the IPCC. What about all the other glaciologists around the world who did not speak out?"

However, Hasnain's assertions contrast rather sharply with a video interview given by him to NDTV (see clip above) on 9 November 2009 – the day that the Raina report on glaciers was published, challenging the claims made in the IPCC report. Then, he is seen to be defending the 2035 figure, and allowing himself to be styled as "author of the original IPCC report".

According to The Guardian, V K Raina, formerly deputy director general of the Geological Survey of India, has joined calls for Pachauri's resignation.

The Guardian cites India's Economic Times from over a week ago, which criticised the IPCC for damaging its own credibility, noting that "it would now seem that Mr Pachauri's steadfast unwillingness to consider an alternate position could well have given climate sceptics a stronger footing."

But today, the Deccan Herald also weighs in, declaring: "The [glacier] incident reflects poorly on the professionalism and scientific rigour of the IPCC and has done damage to its credibility." The writing is not so much on the wall as obliterating it.

Adding to the graffiti, in yet another development, the popular Indian magazine Open rips apart global warming, labelling it: "The Hottest Hoax in the World." Indian blogger Gurmeet in Liberty News Central thinks this could be the most hard-hitting article in the Indian MSM on AGW fraud ever.

Given what is about to descend upon him on Sunday, by the time the Indian media have absorbed the detail, Pachauri will be history.

PACHAURI THREAD

It's all lies!

... says millionaire businessman Dr Rajendra Pachauri in response to our article in The Sunday Telegraph.

"These are a pack of lies from people who are getting desperate," he tells the Times of India. They want to go after the guy whose voice is being heard. I haven't pocketed a single penny from my association with companies and institutes. All honoraria that I get goes to TERI and to its Light a Billion Lives campaign for reaching solar power to people without electricity. All my dealings are totally above board."

The poor man is having a little trouble with setting out his case though. He points out that the previous IPCC chairman was in the World Bank and the one before that was a professor. "Can you then say the university benefited from his association with IPCC?"

And the point is? In addition to his paid post as Director-General of TERI, Pachauri has taken on over twenty additional posts since becoming chairman of the IPCC – another of his paid posts.

As for the link with the Tata group, Pachauri claims, "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." Which is why, of course, up to January 2003 the "T" in TERI stood for "Tata", only then being changed to The Energy & Resources Institute.

Then, as we recalled, TERI's own communication manager Annapurna Vancheswaran said nothing had really changed. "We have not severed our past relationship with the Tatas. It's only (the change of name) for convenience," was the official line, four years after Pachauri says he has severed all ties with them.

Then there is the little matter of one of the Tata group of companies being listed currently as a corporate sponsor. To add to that, TERI has two ongoing projects with Tata, one which started in January and the other in July, plus eight completed projects from 2001-2007. That sort of suggests not only a link, but an ongoing relationship (screen grab - one of many - below).


We also have one of Pachauri's other little enterprises, a spin-off called the TERI Business Council for Sustainable Development (TERI-BCSD). Its president is Dr RK Pachauri, its co-chair is Dr J J Irani, described as "Tata Group of Companies". One of the vice-chairs is Mr Homi Khusrokhan, Tata Chemicals Ltd. Its members include Tata Chemicals Ltd, Tata Motors Ltd, Tata Quality Management Services and Tata Steel Ltd.

And who should be on TERI's Advisory Board? Ah! the very same Dr Jamshed J Irani, this time described as Director of Tata Sons Limited, Bombay House, 24 Homi Mody Street, Mumbai – 400001, Maharashtra. Irani is right at the centre of the beast.

Tata Sons, says the company, is the promoter of all key Tata companies and holds the bulk of shareholding in these companies. The chairman of Tata Sons has traditionally been the chairman of the Tata group. Tata Sons is the owner of the Tata name and the Tata trademark, which are registered in India and several other countries.

Socially, Pachauri and Tata also seem to get on quite well. On 13 November last year, Pachauri was invited round to the residence of the Norwegian ambassador in Delhi to sign a £6.3 million (60 million Norwegian Kroners) contract between the Norwegian government and TERI. His institute was being hired for five years to carry out work on energy, environment and climate change issues "in partnership with other institutes."

To celebrate, Pachauri, described as "Chair of the Noble Peace Prize-winning, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change", and Ratan Tata were guests of honour for the evening at a "Norwegian Creative Experience". Ratan Tata happens to be the Chairman of Tata Sons, the very head honcho, pictured below left being welcomed by Ambassador Ann Ollestad.

Our Dr Pachauri is not only a liar - he is not even a very good liar.

Nevertheless, this does not stop him claiming of us that we "are part of the same vested interest group which hacked the server of UK's East Anglia University." He adds: "They are getting desperate because the world is now serious about moving away from fossil fuels. I want to ask them how much money they spent in the operation? Hacking a server is a costly exercise," he said.

That isn't really worth an answer. It is not us who are desperate. This man is clutching at straws. But he doesn't give up. He argues 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.

Hey! But that's not the point we made. Does he publish TERI's accounts in its annual report? Does he publish his salary as Director General? Er ... no. Do we even get to know what his IPCC salary is? Er ... no.

Pachauri, who recently took up the post of the head of the Climate and Energy Institute at Yale University, then says the appointment was held up for a while because he had insisted that his salary be credited to TERI. "My conscience is clear and that is why I am cool towards these allegations."

That, of course, is a good move. If his Yale salary (which is likely to be at least in six figures) was paid directly to him, he would have to pay US income tax on it. And, as Tony Blair has just found out, the details are then publicly available through the IRS. As it is, he can launder the money through TERI and take the money out of the business in India where there is less scrutiny.

On whether he intends to take legal action against us, Pachauri says he hadn’t made up his mind. "Action against these people only gives dignity to these guys," he adds.

But he dare not. If he chose to sue, we could demand full disclosure of his financial affairs, through the courts. And then the millionaire businessman would have some explaining to do – not least how he is booking his business expenses to the IPCC. And yes, I do have the evidence.

Up yours, Pachauri, you are a thief as well as a liar.

Picture credit Jo Nova, from Skeptics Handbook II - used with thanks.

PACHAURI THREAD

Inconvenient truth

The Indian Mail Today again takes up the Pachauri story, under the heading: "Inconvenient truth about Pachauri".

Ajmer Singh, who wrote the earlier piece on "conflict of interest", this time covers some more of Pachauri's commercial interests – his involvement in the Houston oil technology firm GloriOil and the proposed India Climate Exchange (ICX).

With GloriOil, the irony, writes Ajmer, is that the head of an outfit devoted to climate change is promoting the enhanced recovery of a fossil fuel the use of which has, according to IPCC, led to global warming. Equally remarkable, he adds, is the fact that the chair of IPCC, which is advocating emissions trading along with other mitigation strategies, is himself involved in a commercial trading exchange involving carbon credits.

In other words, Pachauri as the climate czar first recommends certain policies for mitigating global warming. He then gets involved with a commercial entity — a climate exchange (akin to a stock exchange) — which benefits from the adoption of those policies by governments.

Some of the murky tale of GloriOil is told here but Ajmer adds to the details, noting that the company — of which Pachauri is listed as a founder and scientific advisor —provides enhanced oil recovery technology to more than 100 oil wells in Texas.

Dr Pachaur's Indian commercial venture, TERI Biotech, often claims that it was the pioneer in this field but here we are told that the technology was originally developed by India's Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

This comes from R V Marathe, director of the Institute of Reservoir Studies (IRS), an ONGC research laboratory at Ahmedabad. He confirms that MEOR technology was ONGC's concept, stating: "The technology was developed by using ONGC's own infrastructure. Later on, we had collaborated with TERI."

However, Dr Lal, director of TERI's Environmental and Industrial Biotechnology Division, claims that the technology used in the US reservoirs has been "customised" but, bizarrely, when asked about TERI's commercial ambitions and ventures, his response was: "I don't know, ask the government."

Here, though, the story gets even murkier as Ajmer reveals that the technology, which GloriOil was licensed to use, was given to it at what amounted to the knockdown price of £50,000 while the charge for implementation and field trials had only been just over £100,000. Given that TERI have been paid just over £4 million by ONGC for what amounted to extended field trials of the technology, GloriOil seems to have benefitted from an extremely generous deal.

Much more has yet to come out about Dr Pachauri's raft of commercial ventures and his relationship with Big Oil, but today we have seen another corner of the carpet lifted, and had a quick peek inside. The full story of GloriOil, however, has yet to be told.

Nevertheless, Ajmer turns to what "also appears to be a conflict of interest", as he highlights Pachauri's role as as chairman of IPCC, and his role as an adviser to the Chicago Climate Exchange ( CCX) and the proposed ICX, the first pilot greenhouse gas emissions trading programme in India.

Pachauri's involvement is clear from the CCX website: "To further this goal, an ICX technical design committee and advisory board is being formed. Dr R K. Pachauri has agreed to serve as the advisory board’s honorary chairman."

The global market for carbon trading is estimated to be of the order of £75 billion and, given the potentially huge profits, it is not surprising that the participants who have committed to be part of the ICX technical design committee include leading corporations such as Ford India, Tata Motors, ITC, Reliance Industries, Reliance Power, Tata Power, Indowind Power Suzlon/ Senergy Global, IBM India and Motorola India.

Pachauri, writes Ajmer, has claimed that TERI is not a profit-making organisation, but works for the larger good of the society. However, the fact that he is the head of a key UN panel and has links with a number of commercial organisations and entities, casts a doubt on his claims.

Amjer thus concludes that his critics argue that TERI ought to make public its balance sheet, viz. the money it has earned from various sources, and the details of the manner in which it has been spent. However, the organisation currently publishes its accounts for public consumption only in percentage terms.

Surprisingly – or perhaps not - Pachauri did not respond to repeated queries from newspaper, either by telephone or e-mail. He may find, though, that ducking the hard questions does not make them go away – as he will see in The Sunday Telegraph tomorrow.

PACHAURI THREAD

Pachauri: money laundering? Part II

Government projects costing respectively £1,436,162 and £30,417 miraculously shrink when MPs are formally told about them, to become a mere £543,816 and £5,800 – "losing" nearly a million pounds in the process.

Welcome to the second instalment of our look at the bizarre world of climate change politics, where nothing is what it seems and governments indulge in behaviour which, in other circumstances, would look very much like money laundering.

In our first piece, we introduced a new character to our growing cast of players – a certain Dr Andrew Reisinger. For his pivotal role in furthering the ambitions and interests of one R K Pachauri, he ought perhaps to be better known than he is.

We can see these two figures together – or at least at the same venue – on 8 November 2004, where they were both at the 32nd Session of the IPCC Bureau, held in Pachauri's adopted home town of New Delhi – a city which Reisinger was to get to known extremely well.

It was at that meeting, way back in 2004, that Pauchauri presented the Bureau with his "final proposal on scope and content of an AR4 Synthesis Report (SYR)." His outline was complete with "Options for a schedule for preparing an AR4 SYR and for managing the process, including resource implications."

Throughout the proceedings, Andy Reisinger was there on behalf of the New Zealand government, styling himself as belonging to the Climate Change Office, Ministry for the Environment. He was, however, doubtless fully attendant on the man who was a few years hence to become his boss and co-worker, Dr Pachauri.

The opportunity for Andy to jump ship was created the following year in Montreal when between the 26-28 September 2005 the full IPCC met in its 24th Session to discuss a report, submitted by Pachauri on the "Management plan for the AR4 Synthesis Report."

It says something of the persistence if Pachauri that the issue had already been raised at the 23rd Session of the IPCC held in Addis Ababa on 8 April 2005 (at which Reisinger was again present), when "progress" had been made.

The issue had been referred back to the Bureau in its 33rd Session also held in Addis Ababa, the record of which is curiously missing from the public domain. This had been followed by an "extremely helpful and effective meeting" held in Baarn, the Netherlands, on 7-8 July 2005.

That then, set the scene for the IPCC meeting in September in Montreal where Pachauri was able to set out to the management team his full plans for the production of his synthesis report, complete with costings and the formation of a Technical Support Unit (TSU). Then, he was able to tell his colleagues that it was "anticipated that the total cost of this TSU Head, including travel etc., would be taken care of by the Government of the UK."

Quite when this was agreed, we do not know – still less do we know on whose authority it was agreed. But the deal had been done.

The Management team was also "grateful to learn" that the two individuals to assist Pachauri, "kindly supported by the Government of India", were available to work in New Delhi. This, it was "felt", was the most desirable location for the TSU. Reflecting possible dissent, however, Pachauri conceded that the "next best location" would be Exeter.

Apart from the generosity (albeit unknowing) of the British and Indian taxpayers, Pachauri told his team that the estimated expenditure for preparation of the synthesis report over a period of three year - 2006-2008 - would be about £400,000. That included a sum of about £250,000 for publication and translation, leaving £150,000 for preparation – this for a 52-page summary of the main report.

Although, famously, Pachauri, was to say that he was not paid for his part in the report, the contract for "Layout and Graphics Design Support" was to be awarded to TERI Press - and, no doubt, there was an "overhead" component to the sums paid for staff.

Evidently so confident of the approval of his management team that on 21 September – a full five days before the start of the Montreal meeting - Mary Jean Burer, an official at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in Geneva, was already circulating an e-mail advertising the vacancy for an "IPCC AR4 SYR TSU Head". The appointment was for 24 months beginning 1st March 2006, the "compensation package" commensurate with the qualifications and experience of the person selected.

This, of course, was the job for which Reisinger successfully applied, and its was then the job of the UK government to pay for him. This it did in an extremely round-about way. Tucked into a wider project to fund a "IPCC Technical Support Unit for Working Group II" – which it appears the UK also funded – is buried a reference to "support for ... preparation of the IPCC AR4 Synthesis report."

The combined cost, financed from DEFRA, is an eye-watering £1,436,162 – paid to the Met Office. There is, of course, no breakdown of the apportionment of costs between the two different projects. And, to get round the inconvenient fact that Dr Reisinger was working for IPCC, he is put on the books as a "contractor at the Met Office."

According to a post-project report produced under the Freedom of Information Act, however, things do not seem to have gone entirely to plan. Dr Andy Reisinger is indeed employed as a contractor at the Met Office.

But, we are told, this [only] involved provision of salary, accommodation, travel and subsistence and other work-related costs, within the period 18th April to 31st December 2006. After that, the TSU moved to New Delhi to be based close to Pachauri.

To the casual reader, this would seem to be the end of it. Apparently, Andy is off the books after 31 December 2006. But then there is that extraordinary payment of £30,417 to TERI Europe, which we explored yesterday - in addition to the money already paid.

In the interests of "accountability," however, these payments are notified to Parliament – sort of. They are tucked into a list of climate change projects worth £19,751,686, in a longer report entitled: "Ongoing Research and Development". The report is created on 21 May 2008 and the project coded GA01087 which actually cost £1,436,162 is entered at £543,816. The £30,417 paid to TERI Europe, coded GA01095, miraculously shrinks to £5,800. Nearly a million has gone adrift.

How much more money, under what headings, and from what sources, flowed through the system, is thus unknown. How much ended in the pocket of Dr Pachauri – or in the coffers of his beloved TERI – we have no means of knowing. But then the whole point of money laundering is to conceal sources, recipients and flows of money. If this wasn't money laundering, then it bears a very great similarity to it.

Despite his belief that speaking to the media "is a fundamental right for university scientists," it is no wonder that Dr Reisinger refuses to talk about it.

PACHAURI THREAD