Skea is Professor of Sustainable Energy at Imperial College in London and will lead the IPCC through its seventh assessment cycle
Jim Skea. Photo: @imperialcollege / Twitter
James Ferguson ‘Jim’ Skea of the United Kingdom was elected as the new chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on July 26, 2023, in Nairobi, Kenya, a statement by the global body said.
Skea beat his nearest rival, Thelma Krug of Brazil, in a run-off. He won 90 votes while Krug won 69. Krug, an IPCC vice-chair and former researcher at Brazil’s national space institute, narrowly missed a chance to be the first female chair of the IPCC.
South African Debra Roberts and Belgian Jean-Pascal van Ypersele were the other candidates in the fray.
The election took place at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, where the IPCC is holding its 59th Session. Elections for other positions in the IPCC Bureau, including the Co-Chairs of the IPCC Working Groups, will take place from July 26-28.
Skea, 69, in his address to the delegates attending the IPCC elections, said:
Climate change is an existential threat to our planet. My ambition is to lead an IPCC that is truly representative and inclusive, an IPCC looking to the future while exploiting the opportunities that we have in the present. An IPCC where everyone feels valued and heard.
“In this, I will pursue three priorities — improving inclusiveness and diversity, shielding scientific integrity and policy relevance of IPCC assessment reports, and making the effective use of the best available science on climate change. My actions as the Chair of the IPCC will ensure that these ambitions are realised,” he added.
Skea is Professor of Sustainable Energy at Imperial College in London. He has nearly 40 years of climate science experience and expertise. Skea will lead the IPCC through its seventh assessment cycle.
Scotsman Skea was the Co-Chair of Working Group III during the IPCC’s just completed sixth assessment cycle. “Most of his career, spreading over decades, has been dedicated to ensuring that the challenges of climate change are understood, and actions to avert them are taken,” the IPCC statement noted.
The election of the new IPCC Bureau, which will have 34 members, including the Chair, 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.
The Panel will also elect the 12 members of the Task Force Bureau on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.
The global body completed its Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) in March 2023. It found that:
July 2023 has seen a number of climate records being broken.
Antarctica’s sea ice is at its lowest extent ever recorded. Temperatures in Death Valley in the United States and northwest China crossed 50 degree Celsius on July 16, 2023. Land surface temperatures hit 46°C in Rome, Italy, while those in Madrid and Seville reached 46°C and 47°C, respectively.
July is also expected to become the hottest month on record, with temperatures in the first 20 days exceeding the 1979-2021 mean, according to data from the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute.
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