UN climate head resigns amid sexual allegations
The head of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Rajendra Pachauri, resigns amid sexual harassment allegations by a 29-year-old female researcher at an institute he runs in India.
The 74-year-old Indian and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, who had been the chairman of the IPCC since 2002, submitted his letter of resignation on Tuesday to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
“The IPCC needs strong leadership and dedication of time and full attention by the Chair in the immediate future, which under the current circumstances I may be unable to provide,” he wrote in his letter, without referring to the allegations.
The woman, who works at Pachauri’s Delhi-based Energy and Resources Institute, has lodged a complaint with the Delhi Police, claiming that Pachauri had repeatedly treated her inappropriately, both physically and through emails, texts and WhatsApp messages.
Pachauri has rejected the accusations, saying his email account and mobile phone were hacked.
A police official in Delhi said on Friday that they have launched an investigation into the allegations.
Following Pachari’s resignation, the UN's climate science panel announced that its deputy chairman, Ismail El Gizouli, will replace Pachauri.
The Nobel laureate and one of the world’s leading figures on the issue of global warming, was planning to broker a worldwide carbon-curbing accord to tackle global warming at a climate change summit in Paris in December.
“The actions taken today will ensure that the IPCC's mission to assess climate change continues without interruption,” said the UN Environment Program’s executive director, Achim Steiner.
The UN’s climate change summit will be held from November 30 to December 11 to ink the climate deal.
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