Champion of climate science saw his career unravel after harassment claims

Rajendra Pachauri, who has died aged 79, was an Indian engineer and economist who led the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for more than a decade, championing climate science and heading the panel when it received a share of the Nobel Peace Prize – only for his career to unravel in recent years amid allegations of sexual harassment.

His death came after years of court proceedings in India, where he was accused in

2015 of sexually harassing a female employee at the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in New Delhi that he had led for more than 30 years. He denied the harassment charges, and two additional women alleged similar misconduct against them. A

2016 report in The

Caravan ,an

Indian news magazine, suggested he had ‘‘for years been systematically harassing women employed at TERI’’, and alleged that the institute had ‘‘fostered a tacit acceptance’’ of his conduct.

Pachauri, known to friends and colleagues as Patchy, was perhaps an unlikely soldier in the war against climate change, having worked in a diesel locomotive factory early in his career. He later received a doctorate in industrial engineering and economics, advised corporations and Indian government committees, and focused on energy and sustainability issues at TERI before taking on a second position at IPCC.

As its chairman from 2002-15, he supervised the UN climate science body at a time when researchers’ credibility was increasingly under attack, questioned by sceptical politicians and industry leaders who opposed efforts to curb emissions.

Pachauri was at first widely praised for his leadership of the group, with Foreign Policy magazine crediting him in 2009 with ‘‘ending the debate over whether climate change matters’’. He was later accused of insufficient transparency and sloppy science, notably over a passage in an IPCC report that falsely suggested Himalayan glaciers might melt away by 2035.

He also rankled many scientists with his opinionated statements on climate change and energy policy, as when he once jokingly suggested that climate-change deniers and obstructionists should receive a ‘‘one-way ticket to outer space’’. ‘‘In my opinion, IPCC succeeded in spite of his chairmanship,’’ said British chemist Robert Watson, his predecessor as chairman. ‘‘He made too many political statements, which did not help move those who were sceptical.’’

Pachauri was a vice-chairman of the IPCC before being elected chairman, reportedly after drawing backing from car manufacturers, oil lobbyists and the US State Department, all of which expected he would be less outspoken than Watson. At the time,

‘‘They can’t attack the science so they attack the chairman. But they won’t sink me.’’

environmental activist and former US vice-president Al Gore dismissed Pachauri as the ‘‘let’s-drag-our-feet candidate’’. ‘‘It turned out that, if anything, he injected more of his opinion into the rollout of the reports,’’ said Andrew Revkin, who reported on climate change for The New York Times.

In 2007, the panel released its fourth major climate change assessment, concluding that the trend was ‘‘unequivocal’’ and primarily driven by human activity. Later that year, it shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Gore.

As the IPCC’s report was examined more closely, some environmentalists said it was watered down; others accused it of overstating the risk of catastrophe, cherrypicking research and drawing on sources outside of peer-reviewed journals in a way that jeopardised the panel’s standing as a meticulous and authoritative body.

Pachauri faced calls to resign. ‘‘They can’t attack the science so they attack the chairman,’’ he told The Guardian in 2010. ‘‘But they won’t sink me. I am the unsinkable Molly Brown. In fact, I will float much higher.’’

He stayed on for another five years until a

29-year-old TERI employee accused him of sexual harassment, alleging he sent her inappropriate messages after she spurned his advances. An internal investigation supported her claims, and he faced sexual assault charges in court beginning in 2016.

Rajendra Kumar Pachauri was born in Nainital, a Himalayan resort town in what was then British colonial India. He attended North Carolina State University, received a master’s degree in industrial engineering in

1972 and a doctorate two years later. He married Saroj Puri, a physician and medical researcher. His daughter Shonali is an energy scholar in Austria; another daughter, Rashmi, co-wrote a book of poetry with Pachauri in the early 1990s. Pachauri also wrote a racy romance novel, Return to

Almora, in 2010, while at the IPCC. He repeatedly urged critics to recognise the high stakes of climate change. ‘‘How can we lose sight of what climate change is going to do to this planet? What it’s already doing to this planet?’’ –