Science writer Fred Pearce asks Dr. Pachauri to step down as IPCC Chairman

NEW DELHI - Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has been urged to stand down by renowned science writer Fred Pearce because of the errors the panel made under his leadership.

Dr. Pachauri, who is also called Patchy in the scientific circles, has been dogged by controversy since he was forced to admit a serious error in a landmark report arguing the case for man-made global warming earlier this year.

“There have been too many mistakes during his eight years at the top of the IPCC. And he has made too many of them worse. Patchy is no longer part of the solution to telling the world about climate science. He is part of the problem,” the Daily Mail quoted Pearce, as saying.

He has been showered with prizes, including Indian of the Year in 2007, and held jobs all over the world. He got the IPCC chair in 2002. He also picked up the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of his organisation less than three years ago.

Pearce alleged it all began last December when a Canadian expert on glaciers called Graham Cogley informed him by emailing that an IPCC report published two years before, with Patchy named as first author, contained a dreadful error. It claimed that, thanks to global warming, all the Himalayan glaciers would be gone within a generation by 2035.

The IPCC has admitted it made a mistake in its 2007 assessment, known as AR4, in asserting that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. But it says this error did not change the broad picture of man-made climate change.

The chairman’s fate would reportedly be decided by a meeting of the IPCC in South Korea next month. (ANI)