Wesleyan Faculty Member of Nobel Peace Prize Winning Panel

Olivia DrakeOctober 16, 20075min

Wesleyan’s Gary Yohe is a member of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The panel is supported by the United Nations.
Posted 10/16/07
Gary Yohe, the Woodhouse/Sysco Professor of Economics, is a senior member and coordinating lead author on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is a co-recipient of the 2007 the Nobel Peace Prize.

The other co-recipient was former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

The official press statement from The Norwegian Nobel Committee cited the IPCC and Gore for: “their 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.”

IPCC efforts were also further noted in the statement:

“Through the scientific reports it has issued over the past two decades, the IPCC has created an ever-broader informed consensus about the connection between human activities and global warming. Thousands of scientists and officials from over one hundred countries have collaborated to achieve greater certainty as to the scale of the warming. Whereas in the 1980s global warming seemed to be merely an interesting hypothesis, the 1990s produced firmer evidence in its support. In the last few years, the connections have become even clearer and the consequences still more apparent.”

Yohe, who has been involved with IPCC for more than a decade, is one of the leading members of the panel. Currently he serves as the Coordinating Lead Author in the Contribution of Working Group II of the Fourth Assessment Report and member of the Core Writing Team for the Synthesis Report of the Fourth Assessment.

When contacted about the award, Yohe was elated.

“The authors who participate in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have always been secure in the knowledge that their assessments contribute to their respective climate research communities,” Yohe said. “We are, as well, always gratified when the member nations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change accept the summary reports of our work as the natural and social scientific basis for their negotiations on how to frame global climate policy. It is now particularly rewarding to hear that the Nobel Committee thinks so highly of our work and recognizes its role in elevating the public discourse on climate change. We are, collectively, humbled and invigorated by this award.”

Yohe is featured in a New York Times article about the award at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/13/science/13climate.html?ex=1192852800&en=25796fc30d0797cc&ei=5070&emc=eta1;

A Hartford Courant article at: http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-yohe1013.artoct13,0,812879.story;

And on WNPR Connecticut Public Radio at: http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wnpr/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1165858
 

By David Pesci, director of Media Relations