University of Western Australia academic Ray Wills has compared the appointment of "sceptical environmentalist" Bjorn Lomborg to head up a new development think tank to putting disgraced former premier Brian Burke in charge of economic policy.
And at least one academic has publicly called on university vice-chancellor Paul Johnson to reconsider Dr Lomborg's appointment in a crunch meeting with staff on Friday, according to Academic Staff Association president Raymond da Silva Rosa.
Adjunct Professor Wills, who has been a spokesman for the university on climate change issues for the past seven years, said there was a lot of disquiet among the university ranks about the centre.
"The appointment tarnishes the reputation of the university," he told Fairfax Media.
"It's like appointing Brian Burke to look after your economics.
"The vice-chancellor has actually said it [the centre] will be about economics, not climate change.But the response to climate change we need is about economics, and Lomborg is on record saying we don't need action on climate change."
At Friday's meeting, the 150-seat lecture theatre was full, with some academics sitting in the aisles and others turned away because of health and safety concerns. Staff from various departments were represented, including from business, biology and earth sciences.
According to sources at the meeting, one lecturer said Dr Lomborg's appointment was "a very large mistake and an attack on the integrity of the university".
"Can we get out of this?" the lecturer asked.
Fairfax Media understands that the head of the School of Animal Biology Sarah Dunlop also spoke out against the appointment.
On Thursday, it was revealed Professor Dunlop had sent a letter to David Harrison, UWA' s head of corporate and government affairs, stating one international research fellow was already set to transfer their fellowship to another institution in protest at Dr Lomborg's appointment.
On behalf of her school, Professor Dunlop wrote that Dr Lomborg did not have the necessary academic track record to justify his appointment as an adjunct professor.
"Academics spoke about a sense of confusion and shame," a source said of the meeting.
"The room was definitely very opposed to the appointment. No one spoke out in favour of it."
The vice-chancellor was also asked whether the university had considered the potential for reputational damage to the university from the appointment.
Professor Johnson said that Dr Lomborg was not a climate sceptic and is a former member of Greenpeace.
"That went down really well," dead-panned one person at the meeting.
Professor da Silva Rosa, who ran the meeting, said it
had gone well because "people asked the tough questions and the VC answered them", adding that "people who have a sense of disquiet about the appointment were represented".
"People asked him [the vice-chancellor] to reconsider the appointment," he said.
"I didn't get the sense that would happen."
Further meetings will be held between unhappy university staff and the vice-chancellor in the coming weeks, he added.
After the meeting, Professor Johnson said that a contract had been signed between the university and the federal government and the creation of the centre would go ahead.
He welcomed the "passionate" discussion about the appointment and that universities should be a place for those sorts of debates.
On Friday, the minister accused sections of the media of hyperventilating over the issue, compared the allocation of $4 million by Labor to a think tank while in government and said, "it is not a climate think tank, it's an economic think tank".
Dr Lomborg is a controversial figure who argues the risks of climate change have been overstated and it is more important to tackle problems such as malaria, though he accepts the science of human-induced climate change.
He has campaigned against the Kyoto Protocol and downplayed the effectiveness of carbon pricing schemes in tackling climate change, instead favouring investments in research and development.
