Dr. R.K. Pachauri

Dr. Rajendra Kumar Pachauri was born on 20 August 1940 in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand, India. He received his education at La Martiniere College in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh and at the Indian Railways Institute of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in Jamalpur, Bihar.

He belongs to the 1958 Batch of Special Class Railway Apprentices, a prestigious program which heralded the beginning of mechanical engineering education in India. He began his career with the Indian Railways at the Diesel Locomotive Works in Varanasi. He joined North Carolina State University in Raleigh, United States, where he obtained an MS in Industrial Engineering in 1972, and a PhD with co-majors in Industrial Engineering and Economics in 1974. His doctoral thesis was on energy demand forecasting.

He served as Assistant Professor (August 1974 – May 1975) and Visiting Faculty Member (Summer 1976 and 1977) in the Department of Economics and Business at North Carolina State University. He was a Visiting Professor of Resource Economics (August 1981 – August 1982) at the College of Mineral and Energy Resources, West Virginia University, and served as a Visiting Research Fellow  (June – September 1990) at The World Bank, Washington, DC. On his return to India, he joined the Administrative Staff College of India, Hyderabad, as Member Senior Faculty (June 1975 – June 1979) and went on to become Director, Consulting and Applied Research Division (July 1979 – March 1981).

Dr. Pachauri assumed his responsibilities as the Chief Executive of The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in 1981. He led the institute for more than three decades and demitted office as Executive Vice Chairman of TERI in March 2016. His efforts and dedication ensured that TERI grew from a small documentation center to a multi-dimensional research institute with an impeccable reputation over the world.  Under his leadership, TERI undertook pioneering work in the field of climate change and sustainable development, with over 1200 employees.

Between April 2002 and February 2015, Dr. Pachauri served as the Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program in 1988. In 2007, he received the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC, along with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. The Nobel Prize recognized IPCC for its “efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.” At the Nobel Peace Prize Awards ceremony in Oslo, Norway, Dr. Pachauri referenced his belief to the Hindu philosophy of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam', which means 'the whole universe is one family' in the context of international efforts to protect the global commons.

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