Climate change chief refuses to apologise over glacier error

THE embattled chief of the United Nations climate change panel admitted yesterday that a mistake in a landmark 2007 report had damaged the body’s credibility.

But Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), refused to apologise in the newspaper interview for the erroneous claim that global warming could melt Himalayan glaciers by 2035.

The Nobel-winning panel has faced fierce criticism over the mistake – which has been discredited by glaciologists and is being withdrawn – and the controversy has given fresh ammunition to climate sceptics.