IIED's Saleemul Huq awarded OBE

IIED director Andrew Norton has hailed Saleemul Huq as a "tireless climate justice champion" after he was awarded an OBE by the Queen in the New Year's Honours List for his services to combating international climate change.

News, 01 January 2022
Man speaks passionately into a microphone.

Saleemul Huq talks to an audience at the UN climate change conference (COP22) in Marrakech, Morocco in November 2016 (Photo: Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, via Flickr, CC BY-NC 4.0)

The honour was awarded in recognition of his work to build climate expertise in Bangladesh, the UK and around the globe.

Huq is director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and a senior associate of IIED. He was previously director of IIED's Climate Change research group for many years and, until last year, a senior fellow.

Offering his congratulations, Norton tweeted: "[This is] richly deserved – huge congrats @SaleemulHuq tireless climate justice champion..."

An expert on the links between climate change and sustainable development, particularly from the perspective of vulnerable developing countries, Huq was the lead author of chapters in the third, fourth and fifth assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Also a professor at the Independent University, Bangladesh and an advisor to the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Group in the UNFCCC, he has published hundreds of scientific as well as popular articles and has been recognised as one of the top 20 global influencers on climate change policy.

Huq said that he was "very honoured indeed" to have received the OBE.

One of the few people to have attended all 26 of the United Nations climate change conferences, Huq is known for his clear communication and strong opinions. He was also the founder of the successful Development and Climate Days event at COP8 in Delhi that takes place during the conferences and marked its 19th year last month.