Just over two years ago, Rajendra Pachauri seemed destined for a scientist's version of sainthood: A bearded vegetarian economist-engineer who leads the United Nations' climate change panel, he accepted the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the panel, sharing the honor with former Vice President Al Gore.
But Pachauri and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are now under intense scrutiny, facing accusations of scientific sloppiness and financial conflicts of interest from climate skeptics, right-leaning politicians and even some mainstream scientists. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., called for Pachauri's resignation on the Senate floor last week.
Critics, writing in Britain's Sunday Telegraph and elsewhere, have accused Pachauri, who studied and taught at N.C. State, of profiting from his work as an adviser to businesses, including Deutsche Bank and Pegasus Capital Advisors, a New York investment firm - a claim he denies.
They have also unearthed and publicized a series of problems with the intergovernmental panel's landmark 2007 report on climate change, which concluded that the planet was warming and that humans were very likely to blame.
The report, they contend, misrepresents the state of scientific knowledge about diverse topics, including the rate of melting of Himalayan glaciers and the rise in severe storms, in a way that exaggerates the evidence for climate change.
With a global climate treaty under negotiation and domestic legislation pending in the United States, the climate panel has found itself in the political cross hairs, its judgments provoking passions normally reserved for issues like abortion and guns. Charged by the United Nations with reviewing research to create periodic reports on climate risks, documents that are often used by governments to guide decisions, the panel's every conclusion is being dissected under a microscope.
A number of the recent accusations have proved to be half-truths: While Pachauri does act as a paid consultant and adviser to many companies, for example, he makes no money from these activities, he said. The payments go to the Energy and Resources Institute, the prestigious nonprofit research center based in Delhi that he founded in 1982 and still leads, where the money finances charitable projects like Lighting a Billion Lives, which provides solar lanterns in rural India.
"My conscience is clear," Pachauri said in a telephone interview.
The panel, in reviewing complaints about possible errors in its report, has so far found that one was justified and another was baseless. The consensus among most climate scientists is that the errors are in any case minor and do not undermine the report's conclusions.
Still, the escalating controversy has led even many of them to conclude that the Nobel-winning panel needs improved scientific standards as well as a policy about what kinds of other work its officers may pursue.
"When I look at Dr. Pachauri's case, I see obvious and egregious problems," said Dr. Roger A. Pielke Jr., a political scientist and professor of environmental science at the University of Colorado. He said that serving as an adviser to financial companies is inappropriate for the chairman of the United Nations' panel, whether Pachauri receives payment directly or not.
Pachauri bristles at the accusations against him, which he says are lies or distortions promulgated by groups hoping to undermine climate legislation and a treaty. "These people want to distort the picture for their own ends," Pachauri said, noting that the report was released two years ago and that the criticisms are only now coming into the limelight.
"What we're doing is not only above board but laudable," he said. "These guys want me to resign, but I won't."
Pachauri, 69, said the only work income he receives is a salary from the Energy and Resources Institute: about $49,000, according to his 2009 Indian tax return, which he provided to The New York Times. The return also lists $16,000 in other income, most of it interest on accounts in Indian banks.
Pachauri acknowledged his role as an adviser and consultant to businesses, but he said that it is his responsibility as the panel's chairman to disseminate its findings to industry.
Nonetheless, Christopher Monckton, a leading climate skeptic, called the panel corrupt, adding: "The chair is an Indian railroad engineer with very substantial direct and indirect financial vested interests in the matters covered in the climate panel's report. What on earth is he doing there?"
A former adviser to Margaret Thatcher who also assailed Pachauri in a critique in Copenhagen that has since been widely circulated, Monckton now serves as the chief policy adviser to the Science and Public Policy Institute, a Washington-based research and education institute that states on its Web site: "Proved: There is no climate crisis."
As the accusations have snowballed in the last six weeks, Pachauri remains widely admired for his work on the intergovernmental panel, which relies on the collaborative work of hundreds of volunteer scientists to sift through scientific evidence for its reports. He has served in an elected, unpaid position as chairman of the panel, often known by its initials, IPCC, since 2002.
"There is no evidence that outside interests affected Pachauri's leadership of the IPCC at all," said Hal Harvey, chief executive of ClimateWorks, a foundation based in San Francisco that focuses on how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The panel's process is so "robust and transparent" that it could not be undercut by "personalities or errors," he said.
He added, "Anyone who is qualified to chair the IPCC will have interests in academics, science, politics or business; there are thousands of scientists on the IPCC, and you need their expertise and they all have to come from somewhere."
