NEW DELHI: The government on Monday came out in strong support of embattled Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) chief R K Pachauri, holding that it will `fight' any attempt to unseat him.
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh told the Rajya Sabha that the government had `full confidence' in the `Indian chairperson' of the IPCC, even though the body has come under fire since revelations that its landmark Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 mistakenly predicted that the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by the year 2035 as a result of global warming.
While the government continues to back Pachauri, it had objected to `the panic and alarm' the IPCC report had spread about the melting of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 without clear-cut scientific evidence, said Ramesh.
"India's objections to (some procedures adopted by) the report were upheld and we were vindicated,'' said Ramesh. The minister, however, added there were continuing concerns about the glaciers since most of them were retreating.
Apart from establishing the National Institute of Himalayan Glaciology at Dehradun and asking the states concerned to adopt `best practices', the government is also trying to talk with countries like China, Nepal and Bhutan to work out a regional approach to the problem.
