02 April 2002

NOAA Scientist Nominated to Climate Change Post

Scientific panel prepares for April meeting

The U.S. Department of State is endorsing the candidacy of a U.S. government scientist to serve as a co-chair of a working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). An April 2 statement from the spokesman's office also gives U.S. government endorsement to an Indian expert in sustainable development as a candidate for chairman of the IPCC.

The IPCC meets in Geneva from April 17-20.

The U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) established the IPCC in 1988. Its first report, released in 1990, helped pave the way for the 1992 Climate Change Convention.

Following is the text of the press announcement

U.S. Department of State
Office of the Spokesman
April 2, 2002

U.S. Announces Nomination of Dr. Susan Solomon as Co-Chair of UN Climate Change Panel and Support of Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri of India as Panel Chairman

Today, the United States announces its nomination of Dr. Susan Solomon of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as Co-Chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group I, and its support of Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, the candidate proposed by the government of India, as Panel Chairman.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will hold its 19th plenary meeting in Geneva from April 17-20, 2002, where it will elect a new 30-person Bureau, including its Chair.

Dr. Susan Solomon is currently senior scientist in the Aeronomy Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Dr. Solomon is world-renowned for her work on the ozone hole over the Antarctic. She is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences, and the Academie des Sciences de France, and in 2000 she received both the National Medal of Science and the American Meteorological Society's prestigious Carl-Gustaf Rossby Medal. If successful in her candidacy, Dr. Solomon would be the first woman to co-chair a UN Climate Change Panel Working Group.

Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri is Director-General of the Tata Energy Research Institute in New Dehli, India, a unique developing-country institution committed to every aspect of sustainable development. He has Ph.D.'s in both economics and industrial engineering, and currently serves as one of the five co-chairs of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Bureau. He also was a member of the "Core Writing Team" of the UN Climate Change Panel "Climate Change 2001 Synthesis Report," and was a lead author of one chapter in each of the Working Groups II and III contributions to the Panel's 1995 Second Assessment Report. If successful in his candidacy, Dr. Pachauri would be the first Panel chair from a developing country (the EU and the U.S. have held the Climate Change Panel chair since its inception in 1988.)

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