Pachauri to seek new term as head of U.N. climate panel

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - Rajendra Pachauri said on Saturday he will seek a new six-year term as head of the U.N. climate panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

"I have after a great deal of reflection and consultation decided to express interest in a second term," Pachauri, 67, told Reuters.

"Of course, the government of India would have to send in my nomination, and I hope that will happen soon," he wrote in an e-mail.

Elected in a controversial vote in 2002, Pachauri has in the past said he was undecided about whether to seek a second term as chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in a vote due later this year.

Pachauri has no clear rivals and U.N. officials believe that Pachauri, who is head of Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI) in New Delhi, is likely to win re-election after successfully guiding a giant 2007 IPCC report.

Drawing on the work of 2,500 leading climate scientists, the IPCC said last year that it was "very likely", or at least 90 percent certain, that human activities led by burning fossil fuels were causing global warming.

It said quick action to avert the worst effects -- such as more droughts, heatwaves, melting glaciers and rising sea levels -- would not derail world economic growth.

Pachauri was elected as chair of the IPCC in a 76-49 vote in 2002, with the backing of developing nations and of U.S. President George W. Bush, over the former IPCC head, British-born U.S. scientist Robert Watson.