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Head of U.N. climate panel, which received Nobel Peace Prize, to keynote lecture series

• Aug. 28, 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, will give an open public lecture on climate change science and policy Wednesday, Sept. 3, at Indiana University Bloomington.

Pachauri will speak on “The Climate Change Challenge: Insights From the Latest Assessment Report” at 5:30 p.m. in Presidents Hall in the university’s Franklin Hall. His talk begins a series that will bring to campus the chief climate negotiators from countries such as the U.S., China, India, Brazil, Germany and France, along with the executive director of the Green Climate Fund.

Sponsored by the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IU Bloomington, the IU School of Global and International Studies and the World Resources Institute, the series will focus on the on-going international negotiations on climate change leading up to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris in December 2015.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, based in Geneva, Switzerland, is the leading international body for the assessment of climate change. Established in 1988 by the U.N. Environment Program and the World Meteorological Organization, it provides a clear scientific view on the state of knowledge about climate change and its environmental and socioeconomic impacts.

“As a premier school of public and environmental studies in the U.S., we at SPEA felt it was appropriate to focus on the ongoing negotiations on climate change which will culminate in the Paris conference,” said Rajendra Abhyankar, professor of practice in the school and former ambassador of India to the European Union.

“Dr. Pachauri’s talk will lay the groundwork for the lecture series, and in this sense it should be seen as a fulcrum on which the other speakers will situate themselves,” he said.

In addition to the backdrop of preparation for international climate negotiations, the lecture comes just in advance of the 2014 U.N. Climate Conference, which will be Sept. 23 in New York.

Pachauri has chaired the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 2002. An economist and industrial engineer by training, he has been actively involved with energy and climate issues for nearly 40 years and has participated in many international forums on climate change.

He has an extensive academic career addressing issues of energy and the environment and has co-authored 130 papers, a large number of them peer-reviewed, and 27 books. He holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from North Carolina State University.

He is also director-general of The Energy and Resources Institute, which conducts research on energy, the environment, forestry, biotechnology and natural resource conservation. From 2009 to 2012, he was founding director of the Yale Climate and Energy Institute. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award, and has been honored by the governments of France, Japan, Finland, Belgium and Mexico.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change draws for its work on thousands of scientists, including several from Indiana University. It has issued five comprehensive reports detailing scientific knowledge about climate change. A synthesis report provided by the panel to governments this month says climate risks “are likely to be high or very high by the end of the 21st century,” according to news reports.

The panel shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore for their work to raise awareness of climate change.

About the School of Public and Environmental Affairs

SPEA was founded in 1972 and is a world leader in public and environmental affairs and is the largest school of public administration and public policy in the United States. In the 2012 "Best Graduate Schools" by U.S. News & World Report, SPEA ranks second and is the nation's highest-ranked professional graduate program in public affairs at a public institution. Four of its specialty programs are ranked in the top-five listings.

Related Links

• School of Public and Environmental Affairs
• School of Global and International Studies