Remember how Global Climate Change is a Hoax n' Fraud because the chair of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachuri, had masterminded the whole "entire body of scientific evidence" scam as part of a clever get-rich-quick Ponzi scheme? Sure you do!
In December, the Sunday Telegraph carried a long and prominent feature written by Christopher Booker and Richard North, titled: Questions over business deals of UN climate change guru Dr Rajendra Pachauri.
The subtitle alleged that Pachauri has been "making a fortune from his links with 'carbon trading' companies". The article maintained that the money made by Pachauri while working for other organisations "must run into millions of dollars".
It described his outside interests as "highly lucrative commercial jobs". It proposed that these payments caused a "conflict of interest" with his IPCC role. It also complained that we don't know "how much we all pay him" as chairman of the IPCC.
The story (which has subsequently been removed from the Sunday Telegraph's website) immediately travelled around the world. It was reproduced on hundreds of blogs. The allegations it contained were widely aired in the media and generally believed. For a while, no discussion of climate change or the IPCC appeared complete without reference to Pachauri's "dodgy" business dealings and alleged conflicts of interest.
There was just one problem: the story was untrue.
It's not just that Pachauri hadn't been profiting from the help he has given to charities, businesses and institutions, his accounts show that he is scrupulous to the point of self-denial. After the Sunday Telegraph published its story, the organisation for which Pachauri works - a charity called The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) - asked the auditors KPMG to review his financial relationships. Today, for the first time, the Guardian is publishing KPMG's report.
KPMG studied all Pachauri's financial records, accounts and tax returns, as well as TERI's accounts, for the period 1 April 2008 – 31 December 2009. It found that any money paid as a result of the work that Pachauri had done for other organisations went not to him but to TERI. None of the money was paid back to him by TERI: he received only his annual salary, which is £45,000.
Not that the truth will have any bearing on the public "debate" on what to do about climate change, but still, this will provide a nice footnote for the future historian writing a "what the hell went wrong" thesis, which she will probably have to write in a wetsuit.