Pakistani Professor amongst Nobel-Winning Team

Pakistani professor Adil Najam, now teaching at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, USA, is amongst the team of scientists and experts in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US Vice President Al Gore.

The 2007 Peace Prize, announced in Stockholm, Sweden, today includes a gold medal and US$1.5 million, is to be shared between Al Gore and the IPCC for enhancing the understanding of the science of climate change. The IPCC is a panel of the world’s most eminent and leading scientists working on global warming and it produces its scientific assessment every 4-5 years.

These assessments, especially the most recent one, have been influential in moving global climate policy, including changes in US and other country positions on the subject.

Prof. Adil Najam has served as an expert on this prestigious panel for eight years, and as a Convening Lead Author for its most recent report. Along with other scientists on the panel he helped shape the findings of the IPCC, especially on issues related to sustainable development and other developing country interests.

Asked to comment on the Nobel award, Dr. Najam stressed that this honor was not for any individual but for the IPCC as an institution and is shared for the scientific work done by a large number of experts from around the world. He also said that the last few Nobel Peace Awards, including those for Wangari Maathai (Kenya, 2004) and Mohammad Younas (Bangladesh, 2007) shows “an acknowledgement that environmental and poverty issues are being accepted as amongst the greatest threats to global peace and security.”

He added that “what the Nobel committee has really done is to award the prize to the issue of global climate change.”

Dr. Adil Najam holds a doctorate and two Masters degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a specialization in negotiation from Harvard Law School, and an engineering degree from UET, Lahore. He has taught at MIT, at Boston University, at University of Massachusetts and currently at Tufts University.

He is the author of more than a dozen books and over 100 scholarly papers and book chapters, and a winner of the MIT’s Goodwin Medal for Teaching, the Paddock Teaching Award of the Fletcher School, and Stein Rokan Award of the International Studies Association.

In the past, Dr. Tariq Banuri of Pakistan had also played a similar leading role in past IPCC reports.

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