Green Peace

Posing as consultants to fossil fuel companies, Greenpeace approached professors at leading US universities to commission reports touting the benefits of rising carbon dioxide levels and the benefits of coal. The views of both academics are well outside mainstream climate science.

The findings point to how paid-for information challenging the consensus on climate science could be placed into the public domain without the ultimate source of funding being revealed.

Greenpeace activists say they discovered a falsified log book and almost 100 kilos of shark fins when they boarded the vessel on the high seas in the north west Pacific earlier this month.

The environmental group's Lagi Toribau says the Taiwan Fisheries Agency is now escorting the Shuen De Ching No 888 back to Taiwan where the ship faces suspension from operations for up to a year.

The small island nations are seeking a legally binding climate agreement from world leaders at the Paris COP 21 summit in December.

But Greenpeace's executive director, Kumi Naidoo, says the position taken by the Pacific countries is weakened without their most powerful neighbours on board.