U.N. climate chief steps down amid sexual harassment charges

By Nick Gass

2/24/15 6:24 AM EST

The chairman of a key global climate change panel has resigned following an investigation into a researcher’s claims of sexual harassment against him.

India’s Rajendra Pachauri, the chair of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, stepped down this morning in a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, adding that he had intended to leave after the release of a major report last August. Pachauri had chaired the committee since 2002, and shared in its 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

“The IPCC needs strong leadership and dedication of time and full attention by the Chair in the immediate future, which under current circumstances I may be unable to provide, as shown by my inability to travel to Nairobi to chair the plenary session of the Panel this week,” Pachauri said in his two-page letter to the U.N.

Pachauri declined to attend this week’s IPCC meeting in Kenya after Indian officials opened an inquest into a 29-year-old woman’s claims that he sent her unwelcome text messages, emails and WhatsApp messages.

“Here I am sitting and chairing an IPCC meeting and surreptitiously sending you messages. I hope that tells you of my feelings for you! *.*” Pachauri texted the woman on Oct. 15, 2013, according to a report from Indian newspaper Mail Today that published numerous emails and messages between the two.

Pachauri has reportedly denied the charges in a court order, and says his communications were hacked.