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In an extended Interview January 29th 2010 in Science Magazine the Climate Science Leader Rajendra K. Pachauri Confronts is confronted with the following questions by Pallava Bagla:
- Q: Let's go straight to the Copenhagen Accord. You had classed it as "good but not adequate." Do you still stand by that more than a month later?
- Q: Yesterday [24 January], the BASIC ministers [the group of environment ministers from Brazil, South Africa, India, and China] in New Delhi decided to give voluntary information to the United Nations on emissions intensity cuts. Is this a step in the right direction?
- Q: But do you think in the way forward, the Kyoto Protocol has to die, that's possibly the only way of taking it forward, otherwise the United States can't be on board?
- Q: Yeah, but now [that the Democrats] have lost the [super] majority in the Senate, it's an uphill task, here onward.
- Q: But if you let the Kyoto Protocol die, then the United States is on board. So for the world's good, would it bebetter to abandon the Kyoto Protocol?
- Q: But do you think the world is ready for an accord on climate change? We saw 100 leaders come and go [at Copenhagen], nothing happened. Now, are you pushing for too much, asking for too much when there is not that kind of force ... to take it forward?
- Q: The big issue dogging IPCC this winter is the inclusion of a prediction in the fourth assessment that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. IPCC has offered regret--but not an apology.
- Q: In a 20 January statement, IPCC still says that India's glaciers are melting away. Isn't this a tall claim?
- Q: But IPCC and others who have used the IPCC examples have used glaciers as an iconic example of what is happening to world on climate change. Now that iconic example has been demolished?
- Q: What is your stance on linking global warming with extreme events? Has IPCC made a blunder by suggesting the link?
- Q: Some critics contend that while IPCC was projecting that it was doing great science, it is turning out to have done some sloppy work.
- Q: The Chinese chief negotiator on climate change, Xie Zhenhua, Vice Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, has literally thrown the baby and the bath water and the IPCC out, when he said after the BASIC meeting to please look at natural cyclic events as one of the aspects which could be climate change. Are you willing to accommodate that? causing
- Q: There is a view which feels that you knew about the glacier melting and of your claims at IPCC melting away before Copenhagen. I pointed it out to you in several e-mails, several discussions, yet you decided to overlook it. Was that so that you did not want to destabilize what was happening in Copenhagen?
- Q: What have you learned from this?
- Q: The other issue that dogged IPCC is the leaked e-mails from the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit in Norwich, U.K.
- Q: Has all that has happened this winter dented the credibility of IPCC?
- Q: How do you regain whatever you have lost? Now people are not willing to take everything you say as if there is a problem there which you need to address, and how are you going to address that at IPCC? I remember several years ago you told me that you would be looking at outreach as one of the key things in your second term, which is what you did, so are you paying a price for that? gospel truth. So
- Q: You said you had not heard about the glacial issue till about a few weeks ago?
- Q: Do you think the [Indian] government failed in its duty to point out clearly [its concern about the statement on Himalayan glaciers] to the IPCC?
- Q: Are you being made a fall guy?
- Q: Till now we have been talking about the credibility issue about science. Now let's turn our attention a little bit to the issue of moral authority. Is there a conflict of interest between your role as IPCC chair and your work advising companies?
- Q: A statement from TERI lists the number of companies you are associated with, the money which has flowed back to you and the organization: €100,000 from Deutsche Bank, $80,000 from Toyota, and so forth. You don't think this is conflict of interest?
- Q: We have never been unfair to you, chief. At the same time, you have Deutsche Bank from which you took €100,000?
- Q: You are both IPCC chairman and director general of TERI. People don't see a difference in these, chief?
- Q: Your public interest and your private interest are kind of mingled together?
- Q: At the same time, there seems to be a certain feedback mechanism. Let's take the case of Toyota. Everybody knows they are car manufacturers. What were you advising them on?
- Q: How do you reconcile that with serving on the board of the Zayed Future Energy Prize and awarding $1.5 million to Toyota Motor Corporation at a glittering ceremony [on 20 January] in Abu Dhabi?
- Q: You have several positions. Some with the Climate Exchange, others with the Pegasus Fund. No, it's not a question about receiving money. You've stated clearly that the money goes to TERI. Some people disagree; they believe that you have to be cleaner than Caesar's wife.
- Q: You called yourself akin to the "unsinkable" Molly Brown?
- Q: Do you think your lifeboat is leaking now?
- Q: That is quite true, I have seen that over the years, and we would not expect that to happen.
- Q: But my job is to ask you the tough questions.
- Q: You put up a brave face, but some in the scientific community are feeling let down. They say that you are carrying too much baggage, that it's time for you to move on.
- Q: IPCC's science has been questioned, your personal integrity, in a way, has also been questioned through this conflict-of-interest issue. In that light, how can you say that you will be in the best position to take the Assessment Report-5 forward?
- Q: You work long hours?
- Q: Is that taking a toll on you?
- Q: Just one more point, sir. Are you becoming a thorn in the side of vested interests -- a thorn they wish to eliminate?
- Q: How long will you go on facing these barrages of hard rocks hurled at you very, very hard scrutiny?
- Q: But is that spiritual strength you spoke about, is that going to be playing in keeping your unsinkable Molly Brown boat steady?
- Q: So your morale is high?
- Q: So will the world have a solution to climate change soon thanks to you?
To see Mr Pachauri's answers, please consult the article in the Science Magazine:
Science 29 January 2010:
Vol. 327. no. 5965, pp. 510 - 511
DOI: 10.1126/science.327.5965.510
The answers are mostly predictable, but one of them stands out:
"If the IPCC wasn't there, why would anyone be worried about climate change?"
Pallava Bagla has been a globally acclaimed award winning Indian science communicator and photojournalist for 25 years, and during this time he has come to be respected for his breaking news stories and for having showcased Indian science and technology to the world in more than a decade of writing for Science, the prestigious weekly magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Washington D. C. His work has often led to the government changing its policy.
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