KPMG: not shooting straight?
Sep 27, 2010
Bishop Hill in Climate: Pachauri

This is a guest post by Shub Niggurath. Shub followed up on an odd detail in RK Pachauri's expense claims. It could be nothing, but is interesting nevertheless.

The Guardian recently published an article about a "limited-review" of the IPCC chairman RK Pachauri's personal accounts by KPMG, a firm of accountants. This report had widespread play as it followed closely behind the Telegraph's apology to RK Pachauri over its article about his business interests. For example, using conclusions and language from the report, George Monbiot went on to claim that the IPCC chairman had "no conflicts of interest".

A small glitch

Among other things, the KPMG report looked at how Pachauri handled his travel expenses as paid from his accounts and his organization TERI's. KPMG judged Pachauri's financial records to be kept "accurately" and with "no exceptions". However, a curious detail emerges on closer examination (h/t DennisA).

On page 14, a table appears to indicate RK Pachauri and his spouse Saroj Pachauri were fully reimbursed by Yale University for attending the "presentation ceremony" in 2008 at which Pachauri was given an honorary degree. KPMG indicate that TERI promptly and quite properly repaid Dr Saroj Pachauri’s share back.

The only problem with this statement is that the ceremony took place on May 26 in New Haven, and not during June 28-30.

Pachauri was awarded the degree of "Doctor of Humane Letters” and received it in person, along with the rest of the 'class of 2008' (p. 8). Yale even declared the ceremonies a 'carbon neutral graduation'.

RK Pachauri - conferred 'Doctor of Humane Letters' by Yale

 

What did take place in the last week of June, 2008? On the 26th, Pachauri visited New York City, met the mayor Michael Bloomberg over lunch and delivered a global warming speech. He reached California by the 27th where he met Arnold Schwarzenegger and Hal Harvey among, going by the IPCC's itinerary document (p. 28). While there Pachauri even took the obligatory dig at climate skeptics as this video shows. Pachauri travelled back to New York on the 28th where he delivered a talk at an UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) meeting.

The larger point

Perhaps an explanation does exist, but it seems quite odd that a slip-up of this kind should find its way into the final report of KPMG’s review, given that the veracity of reports such as these depend on thorough examination of small details.

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