Mohan Munasinghe


Mohan Munasinghe is a Sri Lankan physicist, academic and economist with a focus on energy, water resources, sustainable development and climate change. He was a Vice-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice-President of the United States Al Gore. Munasinghe is the Chairman of the Munasinghe Institute for Development. He has also served as an honorary senior advisor to the government of Sri Lanka since 1980.

Education

Born in Sri Lanka, Prof. Munasinghe was educated at Royal College, Colombo. He received a BA in Engineering in 1967 and a MA later from the University of Cambridge. Thereafter he gained a SM and PE in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970; a PhD in Solid State Physics from McGill University in 1973 and a MA in Development Economics from Concordia University in 1975. He has received several honorary doctorates, honoris causa.

Career

From 1982 to 1987, he was the Senior Advisor to the President of Sri Lanka, helping to formulate and implement the national energy strategy and computer policy. He was founder chairman, Computer and Information Technology Council, and served on the Presidential Commission that determined national telecommunications policy. During this period, he also served as board member, Natural Resources, Energy and Science Authority of Sri Lanka; Governor, Arthur Clarke Centre for Modern Technology, Sri Lanka; and founder-President of the Sri Lanka Energy Managers Association. He was involved with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since its inception in 1988 and had served as Chancellor of the International Water Academy in Oslo. From 1990 to 1992 Munasinghe was Advisor to the US President's Council on Environmental Quality. Until 2002 he was a Senior Manager/Advisor at the World Bank.
As an academic, he serves as distinguished guest professor at the University of Peking, and visiting professor at the United Nations University in Tokyo. Formerly, he was Director-General and Professor of Sustainable Development at the Sustainable Consumption Institute, University of Manchester, and Institute Professor at the Vale Sustainable Development Institute, Federal University of Para, Brazil. He also served on the board of directors of Green Cross International and was a member of the Club of Rome.
He has authored or co-authored over 100 books and about 350 journal articles. He is widely recognised for having first proposed the Sustainomics framework for making development more sustainable at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and more recently for proposing the Millennium Consumption Goals at the United Nations. He was visiting professor at the Technische Universität Darmstadt.

Awards and honours

Listed are some key awards and honours Prof. Munasinghe has received;