Hoesung Lee, a 69-year-old South Korean economist, has been elected as the new head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In November 2014, fifth major report on climate change was released, the follow up of which will be oversee by Mr. Lee. The UN climate summit aiming at reaching a global climate agreement is about to held in December.

Hoesung Lee, a 69-year-old South Korean economist, has been elected as the new head of the UN climate panel. Lee will replace Vice Chairman Ismail El Gizouli from Sudan who held the role as interim chairman. Before Ismail El, Rajendra Pachauri was handling the position but he resigned from his position in February after being charged of sexually harassing a colleague at New Delhi-based The Energy and Resources Institute.

Currently, Lee is a Prof. in the graduate school of energy and environment at Korea University and is also a council member for the Global Green Growth Institute and an executive board member at the Korean Academy of Environmental Sciences. “The next phase of our work will see us increase our understanding of regional impacts, especially in developing countries, and improve the way we communicate our findings to the public”, said Lee.

Rajendra Pachauri, who was elected for the post in 2002, won the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the panel in 2007 for its work on sharpening climate science. In 1988, IPCC was set up which asked policy makers to submit regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change. Every year, thousands of scientific papers are published which are being assessed by the IPCC. The IPCC identifies the papers to know where scientists agree and where they not.

It has been reported that the sixth assessment report of the IPCC is expected to complete in five to seven years.