Following Gaia Fawkes’ revelation that the long time chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, had attempted to suppress sexual harassment allegations, Pachauri has stepped down, leaving the top IPCC job up for grabs. Three candidates have been nominated by their respective governments and another three are thought to be considering:

• Jean-Pascal van Ypersele: Belgian vice-chairman of the IPCC. Famous for blaming the Climategate on the Russian secret service.
• Thomas Stocker: Swiss co-chair of the IPCC’s physical science working group. Is well known for wanting to reverse the IPCC’s current position of not being policy-prescriptive.
• Chris Field: American co-chair of the IPCC’s impacts and adaptation working group. He believes the “world is staring down the barrel of climate change.”
• Hoesung Lee: South Korean vice-chair IPCC vice-chair.  Claims to be a scientist – is an economist.
• Nebojsa Nakicenovic: Austrian. Another economist.
•  David Griggs: British, probably marginally less likely to be completely corrupt.
• Jeremy Clarkson: Well, he’s looking for work.

They sound like a reasonable bunch…

Rajendra Pachauri steps down as chair of the U.N. panel of climate scientists – U.N. statement

— Reuters Asia (@ReutersAsia) February 24, 2015

Read the full story as revealed by Gaia Fawkes last week…

Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the ‘respected’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has claimed that his emails, mobile phone and WhatsApp messages have been hacked by unknown cyber criminals who used his computer devices to commit “various criminal activities”. His claims come after a 29 year old female employee at the Energy and Resources Institute, an environmental wonkshop of which Pachauri is Director General, lodged a police complaint against Mr Pachauri claiming she had received “unwanted” physical advances, emails, WhatsApp messages and handwritten notes from the chair of the IPCC.

An article in India’s Economic Times that reported the claims, has been removed from their website following an injunction from the Delhi high court:

The link to the RK Pachauri story has been removed following an injunction from the honourable Delhi high court.

— Economic Times (@EconomicTimes) February 18, 2015

It’s not the fist time emails sent from Pauchauri’s computer have got him into hot water – he has been accused of using his TERI email address to conduct IPCC business. Perhaps he was hacked…