More Pachauri Hanky Panky

The Climate God is a crook:

A research institute headed by Dr Pachauri will receive up to £10 million funding over the next five years from the Department for International Development (DfID).

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.

But, no matter how deep in AGW guano Pachauri may be, he is really only a small fish, nibbling on the droppings. There are, however, much bigger specimens feeding on the AGW scam:

For all that Dr R K Pachauri has his hands deeply embedded in the till, he is actually a small-time chancer, made good. The really big money lies elsewhere, and he is just on the edge of it, picking up the crumbs. This comes home when we return to look at the mysterious European Climate Foundation (ECF) and follow through some of the sponsors – or "funding partners" as they prefer to call them.

One of those was the Ecofin Research Foundation, which we looked yesterday, finding that it had donated just a few pounds short of £1 million to get the ECF off the ground. But this is small beer compared with what other "funding partners" have given.

A much more generous "partner", for instance, has been the Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) - an unlikely sponsor on the face of it as this charity's "mission" is "to demonstrably improve the lives of children living in poverty in developing countries by achieving large scale and sustainable impact" (as well as splitting infinitives).

Yet, despite this, in the financial year ending 31 August 2008, the foundation funded the ECF with a £2,527,973 grant "to support advocacy issues on climate change and energy in the European Union aimed at dramatically reducing the region's greenhouse gas emissions and helping the EU play a leadership role in multilateral climate protection.

... keep reading EUR.