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This Article is From Oct 07, 2015

South Korea's Hoesung Lee to Lead United Nations Panel of Climate Scientists

South Korea's Hoesung Lee to Lead United Nations Panel of Climate Scientists
United Nations Logo (Representational Image)
Oslo, Norway: Governments picked South Korea's Hoesung Lee on Tuesday to head the UN panel of climate scientists, which guides policies for combating global warming and won a share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

Lee, a professor of the economics of climate change, will succeed India's Rajendra Pachauri as chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the IPCC said after a vote at a meeting in Dubrovnik, Croatia.

Lee, 69, beat five rivals for the job, including Belgian scientist Jean-Pascal van Ypersele in a run-off vote, and will be chair for 6-8 years to oversee a mammoth report on the risks of climate change.

The last series of IPCC reports in 2013-14 raised the probability that human activities, led by the burning of fossil fuels, have caused at least 95 percent of warming since 1950.

Lee, until now a vice-chair of the IPCC, will be the U.N.'s top climate scientist when almost 200 nations meet in Paris in from November 30 to December 11, seeking to agree a new global deal to slow climate change.

Pachauri, who had been due to stand down at the meeting in Croatia after 13 years, quit early in February after a female researcher accused him of sexual harassment, a charge he denies.

The IPCC shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with climate campaigner and former US Vice President Al Gore.
© Thomson Reuters 2015
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