UN official: It's not Climategate, it's Hackergate

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said the theft from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was not the work of amateur climate sceptics but a sophisticated and well-funded attempt to destroy public confidence in the science of man-made climate change.

He said the fact that the e-mails were first uploaded to a sceptic website from a computer in Russia was an indication that the culprit was paid.

“It’s very common for hackers in Russia to be paid for their services…

Achim Steiner, director of the UN Environment Programme, said the theft of e-mails had echoes of the Watergate scandal.

“This is not ‘climategate’ it’s ‘hackergate’. Let’s not forget the word ‘gate’ refers to a place [Watergate] where data was stolen by people who were paid to do so. So the media should direct its investigations into that.”