Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the International Panel on Climate Change, speaks in Copenhagen in December, 2009.ATTILA KISBENEDEK/AFP / Getty Images
One of the world's most prominent climate-change officials stepped down from his United Nations job on Tuesday, following allegations that he sexually harassed women at his institute in India.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said its chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, agreed to quit after legal issues at home prevented him from attending a plenary meeting in Kenya this week.
"The IPCC needs strong leadership and dedication of time and full attention … which under the current circumstances I may be unable to provide, as shown by my inability to travel to Nairobi to chair the plenary session of the Panel this week," Dr. Pachauri said in a resignation letter sent Tuesday to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The 74-year-old Dr. Pachauri is also the director-general of a Delhi-headquartered think tank, the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI).
In recent days, lawyers for two women who worked at TERI have stepped forward with claims against Dr. Pachauri, who has denied the allegations.
One lawyer, Vrinda Grover, had called for Dr. Pachauri's removal. "We have many scientists, both within India and globally, who can carry forward this important work … he's not indispensable at all," Ms. Grover told The Globe and Mail in an interview Monday.
The woman Ms. Grover represents worked at TERI around 2005.
The woman released a statement alleging that she and other female employees were regularly the object of Dr. Pachauri's inappropriate touching and sexual innuendos during evening sessions at his office or through phone calls.
Another woman, a 29-year-old research associate at the institute, has filed a complaint with police, alleging that she received "graphic" e-mails and SMS text messages, her lawyer, Prashant Mehndiratta, said in an interview.
Dr. Pachauri has denied the allegations and told the Economic Times that his computer had been hacked by "unknown cyber criminals."
The IPCC first elected Dr. Pachauri chairman in 2002.
In his resignation letter, he harkened back to a happier moment in his career.
"It was a blessing and a rare moment of glory for the scientific community and me when I received the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC in 2007," he wrote.
IPCC vice-chairman Ismail El Gizouli of Sudan was named as acting chairman until a permanent replacement will be elected in October, when Dr. Pachauri's mandate had originally been scheduled to end.
The IPCC is the UN body given the task of distilling the work of hundred of scientists and policy experts and assessing the impacts of climate change.
Last fall, the panel released the synthesis of its fifth assessment report, which starkly warned that the world must cut its dependence on fossil fuels soon to avoid the most severe long-term consequences.
Tu Thanh Ha