By Ranvir Nayar, IANS
Paris : On Dec 10, when Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) steps on the stage at Oslo to share the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US vice president Al Gore, there may be a few more Indians up there with him.
Pachauri has decided that he will constitute the 25-member IPCC delegation that will attend the prize ceremony by drawing lots, allowing eight lucky members of the IPCC who worked as the coordinating lead authors or CLAs to be part of the delegation to Oslo. There are eight Indians among the 140 CLAs.
In a letter to each member of the IPCC team, Pachauri said that he had held widespread consultations and found that the drawing of lots was the best and fairest of all solutions due to the limited number of persons who can travel as IPCC delegates. “I intend to take the following — the three IPCC vice chairs, eight co-chairs of the three working groups, two former chairs of the IPCC and Sir John Houghton, secretary of the IPCC and the information and communication officer,” Pachauri said in the letter.
Now, with less than three weeks to go before the Peace Prize is handed out, there is a growing sense of excitement among the CLAs who are eagerly awaiting the draw of lots.
One of the eight Indians who in contention is Rajendra Shende, Director of the OzonAction Unit of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) here in Paris. For over a decade, Shende has been leading the global action on protection of the ozone layer and it was in this capacity that he was chosen to be one of the CLAs for the important linkage between ozone layer protection and climate change. The chapter is titled ‘Safeguarding the Ozone Layer and the Global Climate System’.
Ozone depleting substances and some of their substitutes are also powerful greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Options chosen to protect the ozone layer could influence climate change. Climate change may also indirectly influence the ozone layer.
Shende, who is an alumni of IIT Mumbai, told IANS in Paris: “The IPCC is the collective work of a number of experts and I am proud that I am one of them and particularly in the assessment process of the frontline science and technologies that deal with the linkages between ozone layer protection and climate change. It is amazing what can be achieved collectively through a global and multilateral consultative process which is the backbone of any United Nations operation — be it political or environmental.”
Shende has taken part in the IPCC process for many years and was also the review editor of its earlier assessment reports. On his chances to be one of the eight CLAs chosen for the Oslo ceremony, Shende was almost philosophical. “I am generally not lucky in lotteries. Success has come to me the hard way. But I am always optimistic,” says the man who hails from the small town of Rahimatpur in Satara district of western Maharashtra.
Incidentally, international awards are not new for Shende whose OzonAction Programme won an award from the United States government in 2005 for its leadership and innovation to assist well over 140 countries in implementing the most successful global environmental treaty — the Montreal Protocol.
More recently, the Canadian government also honoured Shende for his outstanding contribution to the Montreal Protocol.