Nobel laureate Rajendra Pachauri has been talking about the consequences of climate change for 20 years, but suddenly he's finding more receptive audiences.

In the years since Pachauri began focusing on the topic, the world's scientists have reached an ever broader consensus that the Earth's climate is changing and human activities are contributing to the buildup of greenhouse gases. Much of that growing understanding has come from the work of a prestigious group of scientists that Pachauri leads -- the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Now Pachauri, who resides in India, makes a brief return to N.C. State University, where he studied and taught in the 1970s, as a visionary leader in the scientific community and guru of global warming with a Nobel Peace Prize to show for it.

Fresh from appearances before a congressional committee and the World Economic Forum and attending the Nobel Prize ceremonies, Pachauri will speak today on the science of global warming at the university's Emerging Issues Forum and collect a distinguished alumnus award.

Richard H. Bernhard, a professor at NCSU and member of Pachauri's dissertation committee, said Pachauri was interested in environmental issues and in protecting the environment long before it was a trendy cause.

"The idea he has been pushing since the 1980s about global climate change, people have now come to believe he is right," Bernhard said. "Scientific opinion is turning his way, and the environment is going to hell."

Gore and 'Patchy'

Bernhard said Pachauri's special talent for working with people from diverse backgrounds made him a natural leader of the IPCC, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

"This guy has a way of galvanizing people," Bernhard said. "There is an inner grace and charm about the guy. If you are running a committee and have a bunch of people who are disagreeing, there is an inner peace about him that gets people actually listening to each other. That is a real gift."

Pachauri, 67, spent much of the 1970s as a graduate student and teacher at NCSU, earning a master's degree and a joint Ph.D. in industrial engineering and economics. He is remembered by those who knew him as serious, gracious and soft-spoken. His friends called him "Patchy" -- a nickname he still uses.

"It was a remarkable experience," Pachauri said of his years at NCSU in an interview. "I look forward to getting back to my home, North Carolina."

Pachauri came to the university as an engineer educated at La Martiniere College, an elite private school in India. But when he enrolled in a graduate-level economics course at NCSU, the professor, Tom Grennes, inspired him to broaden his interests.

"I said I'm going to move into economics, which is what I did," said Pachauri, who can still cite the course number of that class. "A combination of engineering and economics has been enormously beneficial. The problems of the world are multidisciplinary."

Grennes, who is still a professor of economics at NCSU, recalled that Pachauri demonstrated a much broader interest in economic issues than the typical engineering student.

"When we were talking about capitalism and markets, he was asking about how all these pieces fit together," Grennes said. "He was very thoughtful and articulate, asking lots of questions and also having good answers."

After teaching briefly at NCSU, Pachauri returned to his native India and soon assumed his current duties as head of The Energy and Resources Institute, a nonprofit scientific and policy research organization that focuses on global warming and energy issues. It's based in New Delhi, India, and has offices throughout the world.

Next page >