MEXICO CITY (MEXICO) – Mexican scientist Mario Molina, who was the country’s first winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his work based on the threat to the ozone layer from chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), passed on Wednesday at the age of 77.
The Centro Mario Molina, an environmental research body he founded, said he died of “unexpected cardiac problems”.
Molina was a graduate of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and had postgraduate degrees from the universities in Germany and California to his credit.
In 2008, he was appointed a scientific adviser to US President Barack Obama and was also an advisory in the Mexican capital as part of the efforts to cut down smog and air pollution.
In 1995, Molina, Frank Sherwood Rowland and Paul Crutzen were awarded the Nobel Prize, for showing how CFCs used in spray cans were destroying the ozone layer.
Molina worked at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California in San Diego (UCSD), which is a notable platform for learning phenomena linked to climate change.
His pursuit in fighting global warming set Molina at loggerheads with Mexico’s current government. Molina had openly condemned that policy, saying his homeland was “going backwards to the last century – or the one before”, when it comes to climate change.