The IPCC Climategate investigation

There has been some interest expressed in the comments to the last posting as to when and where the IPCC will get around to completing their investigation into Climategate. A correspondent had sent me an interesting link that seemed to suggest that in fact there was to be no investigation - at least not into the actions of the Hockey Team:

Today Pachauri reversed course and instead launched a defense of the climate scientists that have been accused of collusion, modification and deletion of data and a host of other offenses. He said that he felt the scientists “are being unfairly targeted.” Pachauri said, “The persons who have worked on this report, and those who unfortunately have been victims of this terrible and illegal act, are outstanding scientists, and have contributed enormously over the 20, 21 years of the existence of the IPCC.”

Pachauri stated that his only concern was finding out who was behind it, not if there are any problems with the science behind the manmade climate change theory or the scientists that formulated it. "I think this is an illegal act. The only issue that has to be dealt with as far as this occurrence is concerned is to find out who is behind it," he said.

In regards to a potential investigation, the climate chief said the agency would look at the event, “just to see if there are any lessons for us that we might want to take onboard. We are determining how best to do that. But I want to clarify that this is not an investigation.”

On the face of it this does seem to suggest that the IPCC is not going to look at what its advisors have been getting up to, but I don't rule out someone having got the wrong end of the stick here.

Pachauri protests his innocence

Over at Comment is Free.  I think that critical comments may may be severely curtailed. I've posted a simple link to EUReferendum's Pachauri category. It will be interesting to see if it gets through.

[Update: Currently no comments seem to be getting through at all. This is turning into a habit on global warming threads at CiF]

Leaning on North

It looks as though Pachauri may be getting nasty over North and Booker's revelations of his conflicting interests in the Telegraph. There is a very mysterious posting up at his blog now.

Spread the word.

Update:

North in the comments to his posting gives some clues to the contents of the lawyer's letter he has received:

An entertaining, four-page missive. The last paragraph reads: "Please do not mistake our client's resolve to take whatever action is necessary to protect their reputations. If we do not hear from you in the timeframe indicated, proceedings will be issued."

Ho hum! The letter is barking mad but it still needs hours of constructing a careful response, the net effect of which will be the same as two Anglo Saxon words.

Update on Jan 3, 2010 by Bishop Hill

Welcome Instapundit readers - please also see the update to this post.

Great Northern

Richard North has two articles in the newspapers today, both on the extraordinary financial conflicts of interest in the IPCC process.

In the Telegraph, he and Christopher Booker look at how IPCC boss Rajendra Pachauri has reaped vast sums of money from his involvement in the trade in carbon credits:

What has also almost entirely escaped attention, however, is how Dr Pachauri has established an astonishing worldwide portfolio of business interests with bodies which have been investing billions of dollars in organisations dependent on the IPCC’s policy recommendations.

These outfits include banks, oil and energy companies and investment funds heavily involved in ‘carbon trading’ and ‘sustainable technologies’, which together make up the fastest-growing commodity market in the world, estimated soon to be worth trillions of dollars a year.

The Mail meanwhile, has completely messed up, attributing the story to a completely different Richard North, and printing the wrong photo alongside the article to boot. The story though is a good one, looking at the big picture of how Copenhagen was a victory for the money-men, retaining the lucrative trade in carbon credits.

Forget 'Big Oil' - this is 'Big Carbon' making the most of a 'business opportunity' that was created by the first climate treaty at Kyoto in 1997.

The frenzied negotiations we have just seen were never about 'saving the planet'. They were always about money. At stake was this new 'climate change industry' which last year ripped off £129billion from the global economy and is heading for that trillion-pound bonanza by 2020 - but only if the key parts of the Kyoto treaty could be renewed.

Payday for Pachauri (redux)

Richard North has done it again, identifying a whole new source of income for everyone's favourite railway engineer, IPCC boss, Rajendra Pachauri. This man could teach even British MPs a thing or two about troughing.

The Pachauri Nexus

I did say so didn't I? Once Richard North has a hold on your ankles he will not let go. Rajendra Pachauri is just starting to realise this.

US readers, for instance, might be intrigued to learn that their tax dollars take a four-way hit. There US government agencies pay into Pachauri's pot, the US Agency for International Development, the US Department of Energy and US Environment Protection Agency and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, a US Department of Energy National Laboratory, also pays a contribution.

Lots more where that came from, and lots more to come too, I fancy.

Vested interests

It has been claimed that Steve McIntyre's employer having given a lecture at a thinktank that had once received funding from an oil company amounts to a vested interest.

That's not a vested interest.

This is what a vested interest looks like.

I think this could be the next big Climategate story. Richard North looks like he has the bit between his teeth, and we all know what happened the last time he did that...(Warning - that last link is non-climatic, for those who only want climate stuff).