date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 18:37:24 +1000
from: "Tony McMichael" <Tony.McMichael@anu.edu.au>
subject: RE: Bob Watson
to: "Mike Hulme" <m.hulme@uea.ac.uk>, "Andy Haines" <Andy.Haines@lshtm.ac.uk>

Andy and Mike,

I plan to speak with Ian Noble about this this evening. Ian has good political connections here (but remember, ours is routinely the first government to endorse whatever Bush says/does on climate change!). 

I will be meeting with the Acting Director of the Australian Greenhouse Office next week, and will explore a bit further.

Tony 

Prof. A.J. McMichael
Director, National Centre for Epidemiology & Population Health
Australian National University
Canberra
ACT 0200
AUSTRALIA
Email: tony.mcmichael@anu.edu.au
Phone: +61 (02) 6125.4578
Fax +61 (02) 6125.5608
Website: http://nceph.anu.edu.au/


-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Hulme [mailto:m.hulme@uea.ac.uk]
Sent: 08 April, 2002 6:33 PM
To: Andy Haines; Tony McMichael
Subject: Re: Bob Watson


Andy/Tony,

I have followed the news, and seen a copy of the February 2001 memo from 
Exxon to Bush that started this thing rolling.

I take a rather relaxed view of this.  Watson does not have an unalienable 
right to chair IPCC and a change may be good anyway.  Pauchari from TERI in 
India, anyway, seems unlikely to me to 'let USA off the hook'.  The 
upsetting thing of course is the lobbying by Exxon and the giving way to it 
by Bush, but we have known this all along is a problem with the Bush 
administration.

Susan Solomon who is likely to end up chairing WGI from the USA is a top 
quality scientist and will let the 'science speak loud and clear' I believe.

The outcome of all this should be known after the Geneva Plenary in 10 days 
time.

All the best,

Mike


At 19:56 05/04/02 +0100, Andy Haines wrote:
>Dear both,
>
>You will no doubt have seen the news about the intention of the Bush
>administration not to support Bob in his role as chair of IPCC
>apparently as a result of lobbying by Exxon Mobil. Tony , can you lobby
>the Australian govt and major scientific bodies in Australia to express
>their concern about and opposition to this action? Mike , I will contact
>Ian Gibson and Robert May but you may have other suggestions
>
>
>Regards
>
>Andy

