The name of Dr Rajendra K. Pachauri, Director General of TERI and Chairman of the IPCC has become synonymous with climate change and the environment. Internationally recognised as a leading global thinker and leader of research, the more so since sharing the podium with Al Gore to receive the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC, he has effortlessly worn these two hats. Now, however, he finds himself catapulted into a third unnamed role as international statesman promoting climate change awareness. As the world wakes up to the reality of imminent climate change, environmental issues have suddenly taken on an extra urgency and Dr Pachauri's work schedule has expanded enormously. These days he is constantly on the move, criss -crossing the globe to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counter such change.

This journey began in the mountains of Nainital 68 years ago. In this picturesque hill station overlooking a lake, Rajendra Kumar Pachauri was born into a family of educators. His father was a Doctor of Educational Psychology from London University who like his son after him had studied abroad and returned home to India. His mother was born of Indian parents living in British Burma. She educated and provided her son with the high standards that have enabled him to cope with his ever-increasing workload. His well-known work ethic, entailing strict punctuality and completion of all tasks, he attributes to her. With this background and a natural ability in school, particularly in mathematics, he was able to attend the elite school in Lucknow called La Martiniere College. Here he thrived under the tutelage of a master called Arthur Flynn who encouraged his mathematical bent which was to lead initially to a career in engineering, with his undergraduate training as a mechanical engineer at the Indian Railways School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering at Jamalpur. He graduated from this institution standing first in a class of 8, who were admitted through a stiff all India competition for a career highly coveted those days.

After an early managerial career in engineering in the Diesel Locomotive Works at Varanasi, he progressed through academia here and abroad, acquiring a Masters in Industrial Engineering and became doubly a Doctor -with a PhD in Industrial Engineering and another in Economics from North Carolina State University. Then came a spell as an Assistant Professor and Visiting Faculty Member in the Department of Economics and Business at NCSU. Despite this promotion he felt the pull of home and returned to India where he took up a Senior Faculty post at the Administrative Staff College of India in Hyderabad, later becoming Director of the Consulting and Applied Research Division. This period also gave Dr Pachauri a trial run for his later multi-layered career. In the short period August 1981- 1982 he assumed the roles of Visiting Professor of Resource Economics, at the West Virginia University and a Senior Visiting Fellow at The Resource Systems Institute, East-West Center in the USA.

The year 1982 marked the beginning of a more settled period for Pachauri. He took on the directorship of TERI based in New Delhi. Under his leadership, from a funding body for small research projects, TERI grew to one of the world’s best-known research institutes. As TERI expanded its activities, it moved to its new Darbari Seth Building in the India Habitat Centre in 1994. To this was added the visionary TERI GRAM in Gual Pahari, 30 km outside Delhi, which is used for field research and training activities. This complex is a favourite place for Dr Pachauri as it has been developed on the principles of sustainable resource management in terms of energy usage and is also where he plays cricket as a member of the TERI team on “Patchy Greens”.

Being Director General of TERI was always Pachauri's over- arching commitment but he still managed to gain international experience and develop contacts with academic and other institutions overseas. This was to prove beneficial for TERI's long term international profile and links. He did research at the World Bank in Washington DC for three months during 1990 and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) which recognized his vast knowledge and experience in the energy-environment field, particularly in sustainable management of natural resources, appointed him as part-time advisor to the administrator of UNDP. He also managed to squeeze in a spell during 2000 as a McCluskey Fellow, teaching a semester at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University, USA.

With this breadth of experience at home and abroad he was well placed to contribute to arguably one of the greatest global knowledge organisations the world has known in the shape of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This body of scientists representing all continents have come together to assemble, assess and compile knowledge on the greatest threat to the planet since the dawning of the industrial age. Climate Change has been unequivocally identified by the IPCC as already occurring and now most governments of the world are at least aware of the phenomenon, if not already developing policies to deal with it.

Dr Pachauri's involvement with the IPCC began in 1991 when he was a lead author for the second assessment report, which laid much of the foundation for the Kyoto Protocol of 1997. By the time of the third report he was elected as one of the vice chairs. In 2002 he stood for the top job and was elected as Chairman, taking over from Robert Watson. Under his chairmanship the IPCC produced its most challenging document ever, the Fourth Assessment Report. Despite some opposition the IPCC succeeded in also producing a more accessible version of this report for public consumption, its Synthesis Report, which seemed to hit home with the media. This report condenses and brings together the scientific conclusions in a more digestible form for policy makers and generalists. This had a profound and extensive impact on creating public awareness worldwide and generated momentum towards a global agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. In September 2008, he was re-elected by acclamation to a second term as the Chairman of the IPCC.

This same momentum or some would say ' tidal wave' of public interest in global warming, has impacted on the IPCC's most visible representative, in a dramatic way. Dr Pachauri is now on everyone's wish list for their climate change events. As well as his primary commitments to TERI and the IPCC he is active in several international fora dealing with the subject of climate change and its policy dimensions. The Prime Minister of India has appointed him as a member of the PM’s Advisory Council on Climate Change. Earlier he served on the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council, and in the 1980s as a member of the Advisory Board on Energy.

But this indefatigability has not gone unnoticed. He was recently awarded the second-highest civilian award in India, the 'Padma Vibhushan' as well as the Padma Bhushan before it for services to the environment. From the Government of France he received the 'Officier De La Légion D’Honneur' in 2006. When not speaking on climate change, chairing meetings, making decisions for TERI, travelling and assessing for the IPCC, Dr Pachauri has managed to write over a hundred articles for academic journals, more than 23 books and for light relief composes poetry. His other recreational diversion is cricket and for this he will always make time.