As part of the new IPCC Bureau, he will work on the IPCC’s Seventh Assessment Report, expected to be completed in the coming 5-7 years
Raman Sukumar Raman Sukumar, an authority on the Asian elephant, has been elected a vice-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) during the recent election held at the United Nations Environment Programme headquarters in Nairobi from July 25-28, 2023.
Sukumar was elected as a member of the Working Group II Vice-Chairs. He is now part of the new IPCC Bureau comprising 34 members, including the new IPCC Chair and three Vice-Chairs.
The Panel also elected the 12 members of the Task Force Bureau on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFI). Mazhar Hayat of Pakistan was elected as a co-chair of the same.
Maheswar Rupakheti of Nepal was elected as one of the Working Group I Vice-Chairs.
The IPCC also elected James Ferguson ‘Jim’ Skea of the United Kingdom as its Chairman. The election of the new IPCC Bureau opens the way for work to start on the IPCC’s Seventh Assessment Report, expected to be completed in the coming five to seven years.
Sukumar, born on April 3, 1955 in Madras (now Chennai) is best known for his work on the behaviour of Asian elephants and how their presence has affected both human and natural environments.
He became a member of the Project Elephant Steering Committee, which provided technical support and advice on matters of elephant conservation to the Indian government in 1993.
Sukumar chaired the Asian Elephant Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union from 1997 to 2004. He also served as director of the Asian Elephant Research and Conservation Centre, a special division of the Asian Nature Conservation Foundation, an independent organisation that he had helped to establish in 1997.
Sukumar has been awarded the Presidential Award of the Chicago Zoological Society in 1989, the Order of the Golden Ark in 1997, the Whitley Gold Award in 2003 and with the International Cosmos Prize in 2006.
His notable publications include Elephant Days and Nights: Ten Years with the Indian Elephant (1994), The Living Elephants: Evolutionary Ecology, Behavior and Conservation (2003) and The Story of Asia’s Elephants (2011).
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