LONDON, (Reuters) – Emails stolen from one of the  world’s leading climate change research centres contained no  evidence to undermine the case for manmade global warming, a  report found yesterday.

An investigation into the British research unit cleared its  scientists of serious wrongdoing, but criticised their lack of  openness and said some of their data was misleading.

The University of East Anglia, eastern England, launched the  inquiry after 1,000 emails hacked from its climate research unit  were put on the Internet and held up as evidence scientists had  exaggerated or lied about man’s role in global warming.

The leak’s timing, just before U.N. climate talks in  Copenhagen last December, was awkward for policymakers and  scientists trying to persuade an often sceptical public that  trillions of dollars must be spent on fighting global warming.

The third and most comprehensive investigation into the  emails, led by former civil servant Muir Russell, defended the  integrity of the university’s Climatic Research Unit.

It also said the emails contained nothing to overturn the  case for manmade global warming put forward by the United  Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“Their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt,”  the report concluded. “We did not find any evidence of behaviour  that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC.”

However, the scientists were criticised for failing to  respond openly to questions about climate data lodged under  Britain’s freedom of information laws.