Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chief Rajendra Pachauri’s fate will be known Monday with the release of the findings of an investigation into charges that the panel grossly inflated the impact of global warming.
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon had in March asked Inter Academy
Council (IAC), a body of top scientists and engineers from around the world, to investigate IPCC’s blunders.
There is speculation that Pachauri might get away with just a rap on the knuckles for IPCC’s assessments that the Himalayan glaciers will be gone by 2035, and the Amazonian forests were in danger too.
The Wall Street Journal quoted an unidentified member of the probe team to say the report will merely suggest that IPCC “should beef up its capacity to ferret out errors in its scientific assessments”.
It will neither call for nor endorse the demand for Pachauri’s dismissal, the journal reported. HT could not independently verify this report.
“Reporters should be very careful reporting this until they have seen the report on Monday,” William Kearney of the IAC said in an email to HT.
The IPCC chief has confirmed and apologised for some of the errors but has consistently refused to step down, despite mounting criticism and demands for his ouster from all over the world.
The council’s brief was to “review and to present recommendations on possible revisions of IPCC practices and procedures,” the IAC said in a statement in March.
“In addition, the review panel is asked to recommend measures and actions to strengthen the IPCC’s capacity to respond to future challenges...”