Robert Watson (chemist)

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Robert Watson 2010

Sir Robert Tony Watson (born March 21, 1948 ) is a British chemist and climate and environmental researcher.

Watson received his PhD in chemistry from the University of London (Queen Mary College) in 1973 with a dissertation on certain reactions in the gas phase with connection to atmospheric chemistry . He teaches at the University of East Anglia , where he has been Director of Strategic Development at the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research since 2007.

Prior to that, from 2007 he was Senior Scientist in the UK Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Senior Scientific Advisor and Director for Sustainable Environmental and Social Development at the World Bank (from 1997), Associate Director for Environment at the Office of Science and Technology Policy of US President Bill Clinton and Chief Scientist of NASA's Office of Mission to Planet Earth .

Watson dealt with sustainable development, biodiversity , paleoclimatology , climate change and global warming , the ozone problem, agriculture and carbon dioxide storage. He got 1997-2002 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in front and its Working Group II. Shortly after the publication of the Third Assessment Report of the IPCC 2001 lobbied the oil company ExxonMobil in the Bush administration , Watson as IPCC chairman discontinued. Previously, Watson had stated that global warming was real. In 2002, the US government rejected Watson's nomination for a second term and instead stood up for Rajendra Pachauri . Contrary to original hopes, however, Pachauri also advocated climate research after his election. Watson also chaired the United Nations Environment Program / World Meteorological Organization (UNEP-WMO).

In 2017, Watson took over the chairmanship of the World Biodiversity Council (IPBES). He had previously worked as vice chairman and author for IPBES.

In 2012 he was knighted as a Knight Bachelor and is Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George . Because of his reviews on the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer by CFC emissions and their political effects, the American scientific association National Academy of Sciences (NAS) awarded him the NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing in 1992 . In 1993 he received the Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and in 2008 its award for international scientific cooperation. In 2010 he received the Asashi Blue Planet Prize. In 2014 he received the Champions of Earth Award from the United Nations Environment Program in the “Science and Innovation” category. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and an international member of the American Philosophical Society since 2020 .

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See James Lawrence Powell: The Inquisition of Climate Science. New York 2012, p. 112f.
  2. ↑ Press Release: IPBES Elects new Bureau and Sir Robert Watson as Chair. Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), May 10, 2017, accessed on September 11, 2017 .
  3. ^ Eugene Garfield: Robert Watson of NASA Receives NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing of Stratospheric Ozone Dynamics . In: Current Contents . tape 24 , no. April 17 , 1992 ( upenn.edu [PDF]).
personal data
SURNAME Watson, Robert
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Watson, Robert Tony
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British chemist, environmental and climate researcher
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1948