Leading global climate expert Prof Dr. Saleemul Huq has been appointed as one of the external members of a new Scientific Advisory Board of the UN.

The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced the creation of the Board on Thursday, according to a UN press release.

Saleemul Huq is the director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) and a Professor at the Department of Environmental Science and Management at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB).

Centered on a hybrid model, the Board comprises a group of seven eminent scientists with a track record in applying their expertise, including in the humanities, and another group of chief scientists of different UN entities, the UN University rector, and the tech envoy.

The Board itself will act as a hub for a network of scientific networks, advise UN leaders on breakthroughs in science and technology, how to harness the benefits of these advances, and mitigate potential risks.

The six other external members of the board are Prof Yoshua Bengio from Université de Montréal, Canada; Prof Sandra Díaz from Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina; Prof Fei-Fei Li from Stanford University, USA; Prof Alan Lightman from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA; Prof Thuli Madonsela from Stellenbosch University, South Africa; and Prof Thomas C Südhof from the Stanford University School of Medicine, USA.

“Scientific and technological progress can support efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals – but they are also giving rise to ethical, legal, and political concerns that require multilateral solutions. My Scientific Advisory Board will strengthen the role of the United Nations as a reliable source of data and evidence, and provide advice to me and my senior management team,” Guterres said in the UN press release.