It’s not just scandal-mired IPCC chieftain Rajendra Pachauri, he of the roving hands and lustful emails, who makes you wonder about sleaze and sexism at the top of an organisation allegedly devoted to making the world a better place. When it comes to misogyny he has plenty of company
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, while chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 2002 to February, 2015, was the darling of global academia and the media. He oversaw and signed off on the IPCC reports of 2007 and 2013, and stepped squared up at the crease in Norway in 2007 to receive the IPCC’s half-share in the Nobel Peace Prize. Those 2007 and 2013 IPCC reports ramped up the global climate-change industry to what is now a $US1.5 trillion business.
The West’s endeavors to reduce CO2 emissions – notwithstanding the 18-year halt to global warming – are now diverting $US4 billion a day from potentially worthwhile Third World causes such as malaria control, safe water, sanitation and food security. Just for old times sake, I looked up Pachauri’s speech at the Oslo Peace Prize ceremony.
He quoted approvingly, “We honor the earth; for bringing forth flowers and food and trees…” Lovely! He then went on to warn about accelerating loss of water supplies from Himalayan glaciers, relied on “by more than one-sixth of the world’s population”. Oops! That was the Fourth Report’s “all gone by 2035” howler (based on a newspaper cutting) which nearly saw him sacked by the InterAcademy Council in 2010, after he’d abused a genuine scientist for pointing out the error. Pachauri finished, “Will those responsible for decisions in the field of climate change at the global level listen to the voice of science and knowledge, which is now loud and clear?”