United Nations Climate Czars make own rules

Because the United States' has had 20 years of weak leadership, people like UN climate chief Rajendra Pachauri think they can bully us. Pachauri's IPCC chairmanship is "unpaid," (although he has a travel and expense account) so he is free to make various associations, and is exempt from having to report where he derives any of his income (UK Telegraph, below). And he has no education in climate science (economics and industrial engineering).

• April 2002 ClimateGate emails say the UN climate chief job is political more than anything else. So here is an admittedly political job, billions of dollars riding on his every word, yet he technically doesn't have to tell anyone how he is paid from his countless advisory jobs. In the UK, millions of pounds have been contracted to a firm from which he draws a salary, prompting an inquiry:

1/16/10 "The grant comes amid question marks over the finances of The Energy and Resources Institute's (TERI) London operation. Last week its UK head called in independent accountants after admitting 'anomalies' – described as 'unintentional' – in its accounts that have prompted demands for the Charity Commission to investigate....

• Dr Pachauri, TERI's director-general, has built up a worldwide network of business interests since his appointment as chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2002. The post, argue critics, has given him huge prestige and influence as the world's most powerful climate official....

Because Dr Pachauri's role at the IPCC is unpaid – although he does receive tens of thousands of pounds in travel expenses – he is exempt along with other panel members from declaring outside interests with the UN.

• But he is paid an undisclosed salary by TERI while the institute has also received payments from a number of organisations and businesses he has advised in recent years including 100,000 euros (£88,400) from Deutcshe bank, $80,000 (£49,000) from Toyota Motors, and $580,000 (£357,000) from Yale University, where he serves as head of its new Climate and Energy Institute. ...

Ritu Kumar, who runs TERI Europe, said in response to inquiries by this newspaper she had called in independent accountants Mazars.

• Dr Kumar wrote: "As a result of this, Mazars has advised us that there are anomalies in the accounts filed with the Charity Commission.
  

As soon as we learned of these anomalies, which were unintentional on our part, we informed the Charity Commission and immediately asked the accountant to prepare revised accounts, which will apply the correct accounting treatment.""...

• from UK Telegraph by Robert Mendick, "Taxpayers' Millions Paid to Indian Institute run by UN Climate Chief"