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The Challenges of Climate Change

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 18:45 in Discussion Forums
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Where: Dialogue Society, London
By Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London

Abstract

In recent years climate change has become increasingly present in public consciousness and in the headlines. Some errors within part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's recent assessment of climate change and thecontroversy surrounding emails sent by the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit email provoked considerable media criticism of both climate science and the climate science community. Coupled with a particularly cold winter in Europe, public opinion surveys have revealed growing public doubts about whether climate change is happening and, even if it is, whether it is man-made. Yet the International Panel that reviewed the work of the CRU found no evidence of scientific malpractice in any of the work of the CRU and the errors within the IPCC's report were not central to its main scientific conclusions. The scientific evidence that climate change is occurring and is largely caused by human activities remains both strong and compelling.

The Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London aims to “drive climate related research and translate it into real world impact” by catalysing and drawing on research to inform policy and business decisions, building capacity to understand and tackle climate change through the funding of new climate-related academic posts and PhD studentships, creating new forms of collaboration such as the Climate KIC, a partnership between research, business and regions aimed at creating a step-change in Europe's innovative response to climate change, and through its developing publications and events programmes.

Dr Buckle is the Institute’s Policy Director. His talk will address some of the key scientific, economic and technological dimensions of climate change and offer a personal view on prospects for international and national policy efforts to tackle climate change in the years ahead.

Biography of Dr Simon Buckle,CMG FInstP

Simon has been Policy Director at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London since September 2007. He is a former senior UK diplomat (1986-2007), with broad experience of foreign policy and diplomacy. He has also worked as an economist on international financial stability and market infrastructure at the Bank of England (1998-2002) and in the Ministry of Defence (1988-91). He has a DPhil in Theoretical Physics (1985), an MSc in Financial Economics (University of London, 1999) and a Joint Honours degree (First Class) in Physics and Philosophy (1982). He is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and a member of the IoP’s Committee on International Development. He was awarded a CMG in 2007.

Simon’s recent work has focussed on climate economics and mitigation, international climate policy and on ecosystem services. His paper on “Climate mitigation: sustainable preferences and cumulative carbon” has been accepted for presentation at the 4th World Congress of Environmental and Resource Economists to be held in Montreal in mid 2010 and submitted for publication. He was a co-author of a recently published paper on “Priority research areas for ecosystem services in a changing world” (Journal of Applied Ecology).

Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London Dr Simon Buckle, CMG FInstP, Director of Climate Policy at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London

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