The chairman of Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change R K Pachauri said on Saturday he would not resign from the position despite the ‘glacier scandal’ following which the panel has withdrawn its conclusion on Himalayan glaciers melting away by 2035. He said it was a “regrettable error” and that the whole section, which may have other errors, had been withdrawn.

He also refused to order an enquiry into how the conclusion became part of the fourth assessment report, the

‘climate gate’ leakage of emails or the allegations against Pachauri that he had ‘personally benefited’ from the position of the chairman.

In his first interactions with reporters after the glacier issue hit the news, Pachauri said he was “not brushng anything under the carpet” and had already reacted to the earlier allegations and would not want to elaborate on it. He said he had been elected “by acclamation” by all the countries of the world and he had a work to do to bring out the fifth assessment report of the IPCC.

He said IPCC had a “very robust” process of reviewing everthing that goes into the report. “Unfortunately, a mistake was made, and we will ensure that the lead authors of AR5 follow the procedure,” he said adding that “we will exercise a level of surveillance that such a mistake never occurs again” adding “we are going to be very very particular in following IPCC procedure.”

The IPCC report was apparently sourced from a WWF claim and an interview given to New Scientist by an Indian glacialogist, Syed Iqbal Hasnain, who was with the Jawaharlal Nehru University when the interview was done. He has since called the conclusion “speculative.” Since last two years, Hasnain is a consultant with Delhi-based The Energy Resources Institute (Teri) headed by Pachauri. When asked by a reporter

whether Hasnain would continue with Teri, Pachauri said he could not answer such a question.

He said that the mistake by IPCC may have given a “handle” to climate skeptics, who he claimed had “lots of money and were backed by lobbyists.” He said in Washington DC there were 1,200 lobbyists working against climate change legislation “backed by 770 companies.” He said he could give “chapter and verse” of the details about them. He said “rational people” would repose their faith in IPCC and there would be no deviation from it.

The normally confident Pachauri showed impatience at the press conference, asking the Telegraph, UK reporter to “get your facts right, mister” when the latter asked him about damage to the credibility of IPCC and Teri. Pachauri said Teri had nothing to do with the mistake. He said Teri had not “benefited at all” from IPCC. The Telegraph had alleged in a report that Pachauri had personally benefited by misusing the position he was in at IPCC. The press conference was jampacked with Indian and foreign reporters.

Pachauri said no action could be taken against the authors who had done the report on Himalayan glaciers, saying they were “not employees” of the IPCC and their works was only a “labour of love.”

He said no information was available on rate at which Himalayan glaciers were melting. No one could come up with a date when they will vanish. He said India lacked expertise on glaciers and that was glaring. He said what was needed was a detailed plan to monitor, measure and continuously. “We have

a deficiency in expertise, and it’s important that we remove it,” Pachauri said.

Pachauri claimed that IPCC’s credibility should be enhanced because of how the panel had reacted to the mistake and that such a mistake would not recur.