I am proud to be an Indian: Nobel winner Pachauri

New Delhi: Former US vice-president Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Dr Rajendra Kumar Pachauri is the chairman of the IPCC, the influential body established by the World Meteorological Organisation and the United Nations Environment Programme, to investigate global warming and its consequences for Earth.

The Nobel committee, in a citation, said, the two were awarded "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."

Speaking exclusively to CNN-IBN, Pachauri said that the climate change is an issue that the whole world needs to take very seriously now.

CNN-IBN: Yourself and the IPCC have been working very hard on manmade activities and how it impacts climate change. Do you believe the prize will help you bring some of the issues to the fore a little more prominently?

Rajendra Kumar Pachauri: First let me clarify that the award is for the organisation, the inter government panel on climate change. I am merely a symbolic recipient of the recognition that goes to hundreds of authors, scientists, experts who have produced the report of the IPCC. So I feel very good about it and I really think this is a remarkable outcome of an extremely intensive process that we have been carrying out in the past four years. It’s a reward that clearly all of us will cherish.

CNN-IBN: You are also our Indian connection at the Nobel. After many years we will see an Indian at the podium. Rabrindranath Tagore, Amartya Sen and yourself. There's great pride here on this achievement.

Rajendra Kumar Pachauri: Well there's been Professor Amartya seen. You can say Mother Teresa as well. But you can say I feel very good about being an Indian and if this brings joy to Indians, if it brings a sense of proud to the country, I would want them to share this fully. And I would want to express my gratitude and appreciation to what people in this country are feeling a this moment.

CNN-IBN: The warning signs on climate change have already been given. What are the broad issues you think the Nobel will help you impact in that sense?

Rajendra Kumar Pachauri: Basically this will attract a lot of attention to the issues of climate change. To that extent no doubt I think it supports the cause that all of us are working towards. I would say this is a very good development because climate change is an issue that the whole world needs to take very seriously now. If to that extent we can find a basis for further action, a result of this attention then I think all of us have a reason to feel satisfied.

CNN-IBN: Yours is an intergovernmental panel on climate change but its often hard to impact government policy vis a vis industry when it comes to environment concerns.

Rajendra Kumar Pachauri: Absolutely this will help in the context of the conference that's going to take place in Bali where an agreement post 2012 is going to be discussed and negotiated. I thought all of this will have an impact on that as well.

CNN-IBN: Mr Pachauri but its strange that you and Mr Gore now in a sense share this prize because there was some tension when you were to head the IPCC.

Rajendra Kumar Pachauri: No as matter of fact we had come together well before the Nobel Prize. I have the highest regard for vice president al gore. He is a wonderful person, very warm and a good friend. We had actually come together some months back. This will bring us closer together.

Source : IBNLIVE.COM