Dr. Rajendra Pachauri is the Chairman of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Last week, the IPCC released the third part of its assessment on climate change, reporting that successful action against global warming can be undertaken at a modest cost.

ThinkProgress interviewed Dr. Pachauri this morning, and sought his views on a variety of climate change issues, including what global warming’s impact is on national security, what advice he would give to a presidential candidate, and what immediate changes the U.S. needs to make.

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Recently, the Washington Times reported, “Senior House Republicans are complaining about Democrats’ plans to divert ‘scarce’ intelligence funds to study global warming.” In our interview with Dr. Pachauri, he underscored the fact that climate change can pose a serious threat to our global security:

If the impact of climate change is going to make regions of violence poorer, then they really provide a level of fertility for inciting disaffection, resentment against the prosperous world. That’s an indirect effect that can create the conditions for terrorism. There is also domestic reasons. If higher-intensity hurricanes create a lot of damage, that does in some sense have security-implications as well. There is a whole range of factors. Water scarcity is another one. I’m not saying all this translates into direct threats to the U.S., but conflict anywhere has some implication for security in the U.S. As the most powerful and most prosperous nation on Earth, it is for the U.S. to take a global view of what strategically might minimize the possibility of threats to national security.

Other summarized highlights from the interview below: Read more

The AP reports:

A special panel has found that World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz broke bank rules in arranging a pay package and promotion for his girlfriend, a person familiar with the report said Monday.

Wolfowitz was presented with the findings by the special bank panel investigating his handling of the 2005 promotion and pay raise of bank employee Shaha Riza.

The report was not made public, but the person familiar with its findings confirmed that violations were cited but did not provide any details. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the report has not yet been released.

Included in the list of dignitaries invited to tonight’s state dinner in honor of Queen Elizabeth: Elisabeth Hasselbeck, host of The View, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger; former Secretary of State Colin Powell; NFL Quarterback and Bush supporter Peyton Manning; NBC White House correspondent David Gregory; and Newsweek White House correspondent Richard Wolffe. Full list here.

Last month, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) wrote letters to at least 24 government departments and agencies directing them to preserve e-mails received from or sent to non-governmental e-mail accounts (i.e. gwb43.com, georgewbush.com and rnchq.org) used by White House staffers.

Since both the RNC and the White House have said they did not preserve some of these communications from White House staffers, Waxman is attempting to acquire the emails through an alternative route.

The agencies pushed back on Waxman’s request:

Waxman’s Democratic staffers earlier sent out a letter demanding e-mails, but agencies reported back that the request was unclear.

The Examiner obtained a new memo sent to federal agencies from Waxman’s committee which provides “additional guidance” for conducting a wide search for e-mails involving White House political adviser Karl Rove and other political aides:

“The search should include any e-mails received or sent by any covered agency official after January 20, 2001 and before April 12, 2007,” says the two-page memo, a copy of which was obtained Monday by The Examiner. [...]

Its memo lists four types of “covered agency officials” – basically political appointees. It specifically mentions 15 people in whom the committee is particularly interested. They include Rove, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, and 13 other current and former White House aides.

“For each covered agency official, the search should include the official’s e-mail account, any archive of e-mail account including printed e-mails where appropriate, servers, and any backup tape or other backup media containing e-mails to or from the official,” the committee memo states.

Sen. Patrick Leahy has warned of further action if the lost messages are not found. “Those e-mails are there, they just don’t want to produce them. We’ll subpoena them if necessary.”

Number of senior Bush administration aides who have “either retired or resigned from important posts at the White House, Pentagon and State Department in the past six months.” NYU professor Paul Light notes, “You would expect to see vacancies arise as things wind down, but it’s about six months early for this kind of a mass exodus.”