This week’s meeting in Nairobi is to pick a new chair for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose reports establish the scientific consensus on climate change.
After almost eight years in charge, South Korean economist Hoesung Lee is stepping down, and the UN body founded in 1988 may now elect its first female head of state.
Thelma Krug of Brazil, an IPCC vice-chair and former researcher at her nation’s national space institute, and Debra Roberts of South Africa, a biogeographer who specializes in urbanization issues and is currently co-chair of an IPCC working group looking into the effects of climate change on societies and ecosystems, are two of the four candidates for the position.
Paleoclimatologist Valerie Masson-Delmotte, who heads one of three IPCC working groups, said it was “important” to have female candidates on the slate — unlike in 2015 when all six hopefuls were men.
“It’s not because they are women but because they are people of high scientific prowess who understand well the contrasting political and social stakes in the world’s different countries,” she told AFP, adding all four hopefuls had the vision to spearhead renewal at a time of “many challenges”.
Nearly one in three IPCC contributors are female.
The other two contenders for the position of head of the body are Jim Skea, a professor of renewable energy at Imperial College in London, and Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, a climatologist from Belgium who previously ran for the position in 2015.
Skea is also the co-chair of a working group inside the IPCC examining ways to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Until the conclusion of a crucial decade, which is thought to be the last for mankind to take action to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius relative to preindustrial levels, whomever wins the top position will manage and direct hundreds of experts.
