The Guardian reports that Dr Simon Lewis, an expert in tropical rain forests from the University of Leeds, has made a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission about Jonathan Leake's Amazongate article in the Sunday Times.
Leake's article said that the IPCC had reported that 40% of the Amazonian rainforest was very sensitive to changes in rainfall and might therefore be wiped out by global warming. Leake observed that this claim was based on a WWF report that cited in turn a Nature paper that had nothing to do with rainfall.
Dr Lewis's complaint is that Leake gave the impression that the IPCC had made a false claim. His position is that the citation was foolish, but that the 40% statement was supported by the underlying literature, even if that literature was not cited by the IPCC.
The confusion seems to have arisen from a headline that appeared in the print edition, which described the 40% statement as "bogus". This seems to have been removed fairly quickly from the online edition. There is little suggestion in the text of the article that Leake was disputing the 40% statement per se, merely that the citing of WWF literature was inappropropriate. It looks to me as though the headline has been written by someone who didn't read the article very carefully.
Within the text itself, the only word I can see that can possibly be construed as objectionable is "unsubstantiated". Is it alright to describe the IPCC's statement in this way when the substantiation is not presented in the report? I think reasonable people will be able to differ on this, but it's clear from the context that Leake is saying that the statement is not supported by the citation given rather than saying that the statement is wrong.
Lewis seems to have some other grouches, such as the report having been changed after Leake had read it over to him, and the headings on the graphics suggesting the IPCC statement was wrong. More intriguingly, Lewis seems to want the PCC to make Leake reveal his email correspondence with Richard North, who did some of the research on the article. This strikes me as something of a fishing trip by Dr Lewis.
Whether any of this is the basis for a complaint to the PC, I don't know, but it is surely not a substantial complaint.