More pressure has been heaped on the UN’s climate change body in recent days, adding to that caused by the admission that it had allowed an erroneous claim on glacier melting into its influential reports.

Last week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change apologised for the “poorly substantiated estimates of rate of recession and date for the Himalayan glaciers”, after widespread questioning over claims these glaciers could vanish by 2035.

Today a number of newspapers are claiming that the 2035 claim was used in grant applications that netted thousands of dollars for the New Delhi-based Energy and Resources Institute, which is run by IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri. The charge is being led by the Sunday Times, which also notes that, “In India questions are also being asked about Pachauri’s links with GloriOil, a Houston, Texas-based oil technology company that specialises in recovering extra oil from declining oil fields”.

Speaking to the media last week Pachauri said, “Rational people see the larger picture and are not going to be distracted by this one error.” (Financial Times.)

However, another alleged error is also crawling into the limelight, with questions being asked about IPCC claims regarding extreme weather damage and global warming.

Climate blogger Roger Pielke Jr has been hammering this point for a while. Last year he outlined his issues under the headline, “systematic misrepresentation of the science of disasters and climate change”. His blog highlights his reasons for claiming this and discusses the latest re-heating of this issue.