Rajendra Pachauri, 79, Dies; Led Nobel-Winning Climate Agency

It is with great sadness that I note the passing of Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, who, for 13 years, chaired the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an organization widely recognized for its work on global warming. A colleague said that Pachauri “laid the ground for climate change conversations today.”

My third book (Renewable Energy—Following the Money)  featured an interview with Dr. Pachauri.  As I wrote at the time:

The fond respect I had maintained for Dr. Pachauri for the many years before I met him at his office at Yale University deepened even further during the course of our talk on energy policy and climate change.  I knew within seconds after I had sat down and turned on my digital recorder that “Raj” (as he suggested I call him) was an intensely likable, passionate, and intelligent man.  Yet it would come over the course of the next hour or so that he would have my sympathy, as well as my respect. 

Imagine speaking with a man with an elaborate set of advanced degrees in the sciences surrounding the subject, then realize that his mission is bringing the countries of the world together to agree on a set of sacrifices that all seven billion people here on Earth are willing to make on behalf of one another.

Imagine being one of the top minds on Earth who understands how profoundly screwed we all are in terms of the progressive advancement of climate change—someone whose group would be soon to publish a piece that suggests that it’s quite possible that the effects of climate change may be irreversible, yet to be set with the task, year after year, of leading a set of completely fruitless meetings.  My heart—and my heartiest support–goes out to Raj.