South Africa is delighted to nominate Professor Debra Roberts, one of the international community’s leading climate change scientists and practitioners, as candidate for the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The elections take place at the United Nations Environment Programme headquarters in Nairobi in July 2023.
If elected, Professor Roberts would be the first woman and first person from Africa to be an IPCC Chair in the organization’s history. She brings deep experience working in a city and country with well-developed infrastructure, as well as significant developmental challenges. In South Africa and across international forums, Professor Roberts has a reputation as a natural bridge-builder, moving fluidly between academia, policymaking, and practice. This means governments can expect her to help ensure a balanced, inclusive and comprehensive assessment of the science, which is equitably focused on the priorities of all countries.
The South African Government has full confidence that Professor Roberts would be a unifying Chair for the IPCC, bringing her exceptional abilities across science, policy and practice to meet the challenges of this decade of implementation.
Mr Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa
President of the Republic of South Africa
