Headlines
Pachauri steps down as IPCC chief
New Delhi/Nairobi, Feb 24
Environmentalist
R.K. Pachauri Tuesday stepped down as chairman of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) following charges of sexual harassment.
Pachauri has denied the accusation.
The bureau of the UN's IPCC
agreed Tuesday to designate Vice-Chair Ismail El Gizouli as acting
chair. This follows the decision by Pachauri to step down, a press
release said Tuesday.
Confirming the resignation, a spokesperson
for Pachauri said in a statement: "Chairman Rajendra K. Pachauri has
informed the IPCC that he has resigned from his position effective today
(Tuesday)."
Pachauri, who is also the director-general of The
Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), is facing a complaint of alleged
harassment by a woman research analyst who has also lodged a police
case.
Citing several texts, emails, and WhatsApp messages as
evidence to prove the claim of sexual harassment, the complainant
accused the scientist of harassing her soon after she joined the
Delhi-based environment think-tank in September 2013.
However, Pachauri's counsel refuted the accusations saying his client's computer and phone were "hacked".
Pachauri's
move to step down from the IPCC assumes great significance at a time
when India is being looked up to for leading the global negotiations at
UN climate change conference in Paris in December.
Paris 2015
will serve as a global platform where world leaders would converge to
hammer out a universal framework to roll back carbon emissions after
2020. The new framework would replace the current Kyoto protocol.
Pachauri, as the IPCC chair, was expected to play a prominent role in all the key negotiations in the run up to Paris 2015.
However,
following the sexual harassment charges, he had already announced last
week that he would skip one of the IPCC sessions in Nairobi due to
"issues demanding his attention" in India.
In 2007, the IPCC was
jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al
Gore for their part in galvanizing international action against climate
change.
Pachauri was elected to the first of two terms as chair
of the IPCC in April 2002 and had been scheduled to complete his second
term in October, said the IPCC statement.