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Co-Founder of UN Climate Panel Dies
By MALIN RISING – 7 hours ago

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Bert Bolin, a Swedish climate scientist and co-founder of the Nobel Peace-winning U.N. panel on climate change, has died at age 82.

As early as the 1950s, Bolin produced research about the circulation of carbon in nature that remains relevant to the debate on climate change. He played a key role in communicating the dangers of climate change and served as the first chairman of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 1988 to 1998.


The panel won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with former Vice President Al Gore for helping alert the world to the threat of global warming.

Visiting Sweden in December after accepting the Nobel Prize in Norway, Gore said: "Bert, you set up the framework for the IPCC and without your contributions we would not have come to where we are today. Thank you for starting the process."

When he learned he had won the Nobel, Gore first called IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri, and then Bolin, he said.

Bolin died Sunday in a Stockholm hospital from stomach cancer, but was active until three days before his death, said his colleague Henning Rodhe, a professor in chemical meteorology at Stockholm University.

"He was an eminent organizer and leader and played an important role internationally in establishing links between scientists and decision-makers," Rodhe said Wednesday in announcing Bolin's death.

"He was very happy that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the IPCC and Al Gore. He was especially pleased about the fact that the prize was split in two, to award both the pure scientific work and the work to communicate these issues to the general public," he added.

According to Stockholm University, Bolin was initially supposed to travel to Oslo to accept the prize on behalf of the IPCC, but was unable to do so due to poor health.

Bolin completed his Ph.D. at Stockholm University in 1956, and was a professor of meteorology there between 1961 and 1990. He had also served as the scientific director of the European Space Agency.

He received many awards for his research on climate, including the Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal in 1984, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 1988 and the Blue Planet Prize in 1995.

His last book, "A History of the Science and Politics of Climate Change: The Role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" was published in November 2007.