© STEFAN WERMUTH/REUTERSBad scientist: Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Dr Pachauri has rapidly distanced himself from the IPCC's baseless claim about vanishing glaciers. But the scientist who made the claim now works for Pachauri, writes Christopher Booker I can report a further dramatic twist to what has inevitably been dubbed "Glaciergate" - the international row surrounding the revelation that the latest report on global warming by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) contained a wildly alarmist, unfounded claim about the melting of Himalayan glaciers. Last week, the IPCC, led by its increasingly controversial chairman, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, was forced to issue an unprecedented admission:
the statement in its 2007 report that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035 had no scientific basis, and its inclusion in the report reflected a "poor application" of IPCC procedures.
What has now come to light, however, is that the scientist from whom this claim originated, Dr Syed Hasnain, has for the past two years been working as a senior employee of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), the Delhi-based company of which Dr Pachauri is director-general. Furthermore,
the claim - now disowned by Dr Pachauri as chairman of the IPCC - has helped TERI to win a substantial share of a $500,000 grant from one of America's leading charities, along with a share in a three million euro research study funded by the EU.
Comment: This would seem to be one of the main ways in which big government and big corporations buy off scientists. Under the cover of charities, NGOs, think-tanks and research groups, they offer large grants for the 'right type' of research. This naturally selects the 'right scientists and researchers' who are willing to prostitute science in the name of 'man-made global warming.'