Rajendra K. Pachauri, a charismatic voice on the risks of global warming who led the United Nations’ climate science agency when it won the Nobel Peace Prize, but whose career ended amid accusations of sexual harassment, died on Thursday at his home in New Delhi. He was 79.

His death was announced by the Energy and Resources Institute in India, the influential policy organization he had headed for 34 years until being replaced in 2015 under the cloud of the harassment accusations, which also led to his departure from the U.N. agency. No cause of death was given, but he had recently undergone surgery for “a prolonged cardiac ailment,” according to India Today, a major news outlet.

The institute’s chairman, Nitin Desai, said in a statement that Dr. Pachauri’s leadership of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change “laid the ground for climate change conversations today.”

Dr. Pachauri was chairman of the panel from 2002 to 2015. In 2007, the Norwegian Nobel Committee jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the group and former Vice President Al Gore “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change.”