UN climate chief jabs back at allegations of financial impropriety - but fails to land a blow

A seven-star Dubai backdrop as Rajendra Pachauri awards $1.5m prize to Toyota won't help the climate science cause
The chairman of the UN's panel of climate scientists, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, has been under an unwelcome spotlight this week. First, he announced a review into the panel's claim that Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035. Then he had to defend himself from reports by the Sunday Telegraph that he's financially profiting from the influence of his UN role – a claim he trenchantly denies. Now, Pachauri has come out fighting, calling himself "unsinkable".
Yesterday in Abu Dhabi, he described recent criticism from British newspapers as "personal". At the weekend, an investigation of the finances of The Energy and Resources Institute (Teri), a research body run by Pachauri, was published by The Sunday Telegraph, whose reporters alleged Pachauri had a "lavish personal lifestyle" and owned "$1,000 suits".
Pachauri has previously issued statements saying he has not received "a single penny" from payments by companies to Teri for advice he has provided.
"They can't attack the science so they attack the chairman," Pachauri, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told me. "But they won't sink me. I am the unsinkable Molly Brown. In fact, I will float much higher."
Pachauri chairs another panel, the judges of the 2010 Zayed Future Energy prize, an illustrious jury that includes former BP chairman Lord Browne, architect Norman Foster and the president of Iceland. Yesterday in Abu Dhabi, Pachauri took to the stage at the seven-star Emirates Palace hotel to hand out a large cash prize – to one of the companies he has been advising.
Last year the $1.5m award was given to Dipal Chandra Barua, an entrepreneur whose company, Grameen Shakti, trained women in rural Bangledesh to install solar energy systems. This year, Pachauri and his judges awarded the prize to car-making giant Toyota.
Arguably Toyota neither needs the money nor the recognition for its work on hybrid technologies. It's worth noting that until less than a year ago, Pachauri was also a member of Toyota's International Advisory Board. I asked Pachauri why Toyota had won, when giving the money to a smaller-scale venture could have had more impact.
"We decided that if we rewarded Toyota's imagination it would not be lost on other car-makers," he said.
Pachauri has been consistent in countering attacks that claim he has conflicts of interest. In a letter published in the the Sunday Telegraph this week in response to an earlier article by the paper, he wrote:
I am proud of my association with various organisations, of which I am happy to provide a complete list, but such associations are limited to me providing them with advice essentially on clean technologies and sustainable practices. There is no question of them influencing the functioning of Teri, the IPCC or myself. There is no conflict between these roles and my position as chairman of the IPCC. I advise several organisations on sustainable energy and related subjects, and any remuneration that is due to me from these organisations is paid to Teri, not to me.
However, in the science community skilled, engaging communicators like Pachauri – the author of 23 books, including one of English verse – are all too rare. We're looking to them to convey the gravity of climate change and need for action. Not give succour to sceptics.