Copenhagen optimism marred by Indian crisis and climate science row

The general sense of optimism that characterised the opening day of the Copenhagen Summit yesterday was partially offset last night as the so-called " climategate" email scandal refused to die down and it emerged that one of the key negotiating teams is engaged in a fierce internal row.

According to reports on the Guardian Environment Blog, the Indian delegation is "practically at war with its own government" over its failure to provide clear guidance on its strategy for the negotiations.

One leading negotiator, Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, has reportedly refused to attend the summit in protest at the lack of "clarity" from the Indian government on whether or not the negotiating team should retain its support for the contraction and convergence principle that requires countries to agree targets that lead to a convergence of per capita emissions.

He has now been joined by another senior figure, P Ghosh, a former senior environment secretary who has also said he will not attend the second week of negotiations.

Meanwhile, at least one dissenting voice challenged the scientific consensus that mankind is responsible for the bulk of global warming when Saudi Arabia's chief climate negotiator, Mohammed al-Sabban, told delegates that the UN should launch an independent investigation into the emails stolen from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

He argued that the IPCC was not in a position to oversee an independent inquiry, adding that "if we are going to make economic and human sacrifices for climate action, we must be sure the science is robust and firm".

Al-Sabban's comments come as the Met Office today attempted to draw a line under the scandal with the release of records from nearly 2,000 measuring stations around the world that clearly show a rise in global temperatures.

One of the central allegations arising from the hacked emails is that scientists at the UEA attempted to suppress the data behind the so-called called HadCRUT temperature record by resisting Freedom of Information requests.

The Met Office has attempted to respond to the criticism by releasing more than 150 million temperature readings from around 1,900 monitoring stations dating back more than 100 years.

It added that the data would soon be followed by the publication of further temperature records. "As soon as we have all permissions in place we will release the remaining station records – about 5,000 in total – that make up the full land temperature record," the Met Office said in a statement. "We intend that as soon as possible we will also publish the specific computer code that aggregates the individual station temperatures into the global land temperature record."

It said that the disclosure policy was fully supported by UEA and that the two bodies would work together to "seek the necessary permission from national data owners to publish, as soon as possible, the data that we can gain permission to release".

In related news, Phil Willis MP, chairman of the science and technology committee, has written to Professor Edward Acton, vice chancellor of the UEA, requesting information on the email hacking incident and how the university has responded.

Meanwhile, the Independent reported yesterday that there is speculation that the Russian Secret Service, the FSB, may have been involved in the hacking of the UEA emails. The report provided no evidence that the FSB was involved, but it noted that the emails were originally posted on a server in the Siberian city of Tomsk, at a firm called Tomcity. Russian authorities are also widely believed to have close links with Russia's hacker community and have been accused in the past of orchestrating cyber attacks on other countries.

Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, the vice chairman of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, said he was convinced that the targeting of the UEA was a highly organised attempt to discredit climate scientists' work. "It's very common for hackers in Russia to be paid for their services," he said. "It's a carefully made selection of emails and documents that is not random. This is 13 years of data, and it's not a job of amateurs."