Add to DiggAdd to del.icio.usAdd to FacebookAdd to KwoffAdd to MyspaceAdd to NewsvineWhat are these?THE head of the world's top climate change body has been accused of a conflict of interest over his many business directorships, just days after he used his keynote speech at the Copenhagen summit to attack global warming sceptics.
Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and head of India's Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), has come under attack over his involvement in a long list of fossil fuel, venture capital, alternative energy, research and motor vehicle companies.
In a blog this week that continuously referred to him as a "millionaire businessman", British right-wing commentator Richard North suggested Dr Pachauri was profiting handsomely from his many connections, and that the climate debate was being run by a cartel of scientists with corporate links who were making money from the carbon credits market.
A follow-up column in Britain's Daily Telegraph detailing Dr Pachauri's corporate advisory and director positions ran under the headline: "With business interests like these are we really sure Dr Rajendra Pachauri is fit to chair the IPCC?"
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The column also questioned Dr Pachauri's connection with TERI, which is involved in a joint solar energy research project with the CSIRO. "As we learn from its website, this used to stand for Tata Energy Research Institute, but was renamed The Energy and Resources Institute in 2003. Nothing sinister, I'm sure, in its decision to play down the Tata connection; nor in the fact that Dr Pachauri makes no mention of the fact that he is funded by Tata on his website," it said.
During his lightning 36-hour visit to India last month Kevin Rudd met with Dr Pachauri at the TERI headquarters in New Delhi where he announced $71 million in funding for joint Indian-Australian scientific research and fellowship programs.
In a brief email response to questions from The Australian yesterday, Dr Pachauri said: "These are absolute lies, and I am sure those who are trying to perpetrate these are aware of the facts."
A spokeswoman for TERI also denied the organisation had received any money from Tata, other than the 1974 seed funding, which helped create what has become India's premier environmental research body.
"These allegations are baseless and Dr Pachauri has much better things to do than take up such false accusations," she said.
"Let them come up with some serious findings and we will get back to them."
Former Greenpeace International head turned business consultant Paul Gilding defended Dr Pachauri yesterday, saying: "The fact that Pachauri has experience in business makes him more qualified to get involved in the debate about what's fundamentally an economic transformation."
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