Pachauri-led UN Panel to Face Independent Review on Climate Report
Following a series of allegations of errors in its report on global warming, Indian scientist RK Pachauri-led UN panel on climate change will face an independent international review, said media reports.
In a closed door meeting in Bali last night, environment and climate ministers insisted that an independent review should be conducted after reports of errors in IPCC’s last report and a row surrounding Pachauri’s robust response to his critics, reports said.
According to The Daily Telegraph, if Pachauri’s management is found to be at fault, his position could become untenable.
Report said that participants in the unprecedented meeting held at the annual assembly of Governing Council of the UN Environment Programme’s Governing Council in Bali were sworn to secrecy over the decision, so it is likely to be announced only after its detailed scope and composition have been worked out by UNEP and the World Meteorological Organisation, the two UN agencies that oversee the IPCC’s work.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its chairman Pachauri, who were awarded the Nobel Prize for its work highlighting the dangers of climate change, have come under attack over errors in their report on climate change.
Report said that the ministers, headed by Hillary Benn, British Environment Secretary, and his counterparts from Germany, Norway, Algeria and Antigua allegedly declined to let Pachauri to decide who would carry out the review, insisting it must be completely and demonstrably independent of the IPCC.
The report quoted Achim Steiner, UNEP’s Executive Director, as saying that the IPCC faced a ‘crisis of confidence’ with the public.
According to participants at the meeting, the report said that Pachauri expressed regret for any mistakes that had been made, but stopped short of apologising.
(Based on internet reports)
