Eminent climate change expert Professor Saleemul Huq, director of International Centre for Climate Change and Development, passed away last night.

Saleemul Huq was Professor at the Independent University Bangladesh (IUB). He was an associate of the International Institute on Environment and Development (IIED) of the United Kingdom.

In addition, he was the Chair of the Expert Advisory Group for the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) and Senior Adviser on Locally Led Adaptation with Global Centre on Adaptation (GCA), headquartered in the Netherlands.

He was an expert in adaptation to climate change in the most vulnerable developing countries and a lead author of the third, fourth and fifth assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He also advised the Least Developed Countries (LDC) group in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Prof Huq was affiliated with the UN Food System Summit for 2021 as co-chair of the Action Track 5 on Building Resilience to Vulnerabilities, Shocks and Stress.

He published hundreds of scientific as well as popular articles and was recognized as one of the top twenty global influencers on climate change policy in 2019 and top scientist from Bangladesh on climate change science.

He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to combating international climate change.