The UK’s Jim Skea has been confirmed as the new chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), following an election that included three other candidates, including South Africa’s Debra Roberts.

Skea, 69, was elected by 90 votes to 69 in a run-off with Thelma Krug, of Brazil, with Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, of Belgium, being the other candidate.

The election took place at the headquarters of the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, Kenya, where the IPCC is holding its fifty-ninth session.

Skea, who is Professor of Sustainable Energy at Imperial College in London, will lead the IPCC through its seventh assessment cycle.

During the sixth assessment report, Skea was the co-chair of Working Group III, which assessed climate change mitigation.

Published in March 2023, the report concluded that the pace and scale of climate action were insufficient to tackle climate change.

It also concluded that multiple, feasible, and effective options were available to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and adapt to human-caused climate change but urged greater progress on the enabling conditions of finance, technology, capacity building, and international cooperation.

In his address to delegates attending the IPCC elections, Skea set out three priorities, namely: improving inclusiveness and diversity; shielding the scientific integrity and policy relevance of IPCC assessment reports; and making effective use of the best available science on climate change.

“My actions as the chair of the IPCC will ensure that these ambitions are realised,” he said.