Presents:

“How Can Sound Climate Science Inform Wise Climate Policy”

By: Dr. Richard Somerville, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Scripps Institution of Oceanography University of California, San Diego & Principal Author for the Nobel Prize Winning 2007 IPCC Report on Climate Change

Date: 14 February 2008
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Kent Auditorium, WU Centre, UNB
Free admission, all are welcome
Refreshments will be served

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is widely regarded as the authoritative voice of the climate science research community. Despite the strong scientific consensus found by the IPCC concerning the reality and seriousness of global warming, worldwide emission of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change continue to increase each year. The nations of the world are dependent on fossil fuel and are still far from agreement on how to avoid the resulting climate change. Nations will accept constraints on their freedom to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases only when they are satisfied that they are being treated justly and equitably. Ethical concerns underline the differing rights and obligations of both developed and developing countries. The prospect of international geoengineering to counter human-caused climate change raises profound questions of equity and ethics.

Richard Somerville is a theoretical meteorologist and Coordinating Lead Author in Working Group I for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, published in 2007. He is the author of an award-winning and critically acclaimed popular book, “The Forgiving Air: Understanding Environmental Change.” He comments frequently on climate and environmental issues for the print and broadcast media, and lectures widely to scientific, corporate and governmental audiences.