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Thursday 3 January 2008 (Updated Fri 4 Jan 2008)

RAPID ROUNDUP - IPCC founder and leading climate scientist Bert Bolin dies – Scientists respond

Bert Bolin, the leading Swedish climate scientist and co-founder of the UN's Nobel Prize award-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has died of stomach cancer aged 82. Bert Bolin served as the first chairman of the IPCC from 1988 to 1998.

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Ian Lowe is Emeritus Professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University and President of the Australian Conservation Foundation .

"Bert Bolin was both a distinguished scientist and a passionate communicator of what climate science was saying. He did more than any other scientist in the late 1980s and early 1990s to warn of the danger climate change was presenting to the world. If decision-makers had given Bert Bolin the attention deserved by his advice, we would be much better placed today to avoid 'dangerous climate change'."

Professor David Karoly is a Federation Fellow in the School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne and was a lead author on the IPCC 4th Assessment Report.

“Bert Bolin will be best remembered by scientists for his pioneering studies of the carbon cycle and the coupled interactions between the atmosphere and terrestrial and marine ecosystems. However, his lasting legacy to humankind will be his masterful parenting and leadership of the IPCC from its birth in 1988 to its adolescence, with the production of its First Assessment Report in 1990 and its Second Assessment Report in 1995. The recent award of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC and to Al Gore is very appropriate recognition of the efforts of Bert Bolin in leading the IPCC in its early years."

Dr Graeme Pearman is a well known climate scientist who has been involved in the IPCC since its beginning. He is Director of Graeme Pearman Consulting.

“Bert Bolin was a close colleague and mentor for me and many other climate and environmental scientists. He was a remarkable diplomat and I attended many, many meetings where his wisdom shone through. He was able to listen to all sides of a debate and to finally sum up everyone’s views eloquently and with great humility. He was also a brilliant scientist in his own right and was a member of an early group of environmental scientists who first developed the concept of the carbon cycle and warned the world about climate change. He will be very sorely missed.”

Dr John Church is an Australian climate scientist and Chairman of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), an international research network hosted by the World Meteorological Organisation.

“Bert Bolin played an important leadership role in the climate change debate. He chaired the Global Atmospheric Research Programme, the predecessor to the World Climate Research Programme, and the UNEP/WMO/ICSU International Conference on Climate Change in Villach, Austria in 1985. This Conference produced the influential Villach Statement. He then went on to help establish and chair IPCC for its first two Assessment Reports. He also had enormous influence in the climate community generally. I remember him attending a WCRP Conference and him taking an important message from the climate community to the UNFCCC about the critical need for global observations. Not only did he Chair IPCC but he used his influence for the good of science and society as a whole. Unfortunately, he was too ill to be part of the recent Award Ceremony of the Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC, the group he helped found and chaired for ten years. His passing is a tremendous loss.”