FOR two decades Bob Watson has been a driving force in attempts to limit the damage caused by global warming and a thinning ozone layer.
And since 1996, the British-born climatologist, who now heads the World Bank鈥檚 environment department, has chaired the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose scientific consensus underpins the Kyoto Treaty to cut greenhouse gases.
But the US wants him out. This week in Geneva it will back IPCC vice-chairman Rajendra Pachauri, an Indian engineer, to head the scientific panel. The oil industry seems to be behind the move.
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Their campaign to unseat Watson began days after Bush鈥檚 inauguration in January 2001. 鈥淐an Watson be replaced now at the request of the US?鈥� asked Randy Randol of oil giant ExxonMobil in a memo sent to the White House. Bush is a former oil man, and the industry, which stands to lose from any cuts in CO2 emissions, contributed heavily to his campaign.
Watson has hardly curried favour with Bush. Last June he criticised the US for rejecting the Kyoto agreement. 鈥淭he only person who doesn鈥檛 believe the science is President Bush,鈥� he told a meeting at the World Bank.
Pachauri has also criticised the US. And in IPCC discussions about mitigating damage caused by warming, he has supported the view that the rich world has done the most and should pay for it.
Ironically, it鈥檚 this stance that has made him a favourite with the US administration. Steve Schneider of Princeton University in New Jersey, an IPCC scientist, says the US is legally bound to reject treaties that single out countries for special treatment. Increased emphasis on that at the IPCC, which Pachauri favours, would make it easier for the US to reject Kyoto.