Osborne Reynolds Lecture - Climate’s holy trinity: how cogency, tenacity & courage could yet deliver on our Paris commitments
| Dates: | 11 July 2019 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 17:00 |
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| What is it: | Lecture |
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| Organiser: | Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, External researchers, Alumni, Current University students |
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| Speaker: | Professor Kevin Anderson |
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It is over twenty-eight years since the UN’s first major climate report and over a quarter of a century since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit – such heady days of international hope and optimism. Now, in 2019 and with the benefit of hindsight, we can look back and trace our voyage of abject failure – and with humility learn lessons for charting an alternative low-carbon course.
This seminar will begin by acknowledging our collective penchant for delusion on climate change. It will explore how academia has abdicated its responsibility to hold government to account, choosing instead to be complicit in maintaining a façade of mitigation.
Building on a more candid foundation, the seminar will proceed to sketch out the unprecedented scale and timeframe of decarbonisiation now necessary to deliver on our Paris commitments. It will elaborate on the need for rapid and profound technical and social change, concluding that a Marshall-style policy prospectus, with equity at its core, could yet deliver a prosperous and decarbonised future.
Four related articles:
- Irreverent musings of Katowice’s COP24
- Hope from chaos: could political upheaval lead to a new green epoch?
- Negative emissions lock in carbon addiction - Science 2016
- My assessment of Paris - published in Nature. Free pre-edit at The Hidden Agenda
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Speaker: Prof. Kevin Anderson
Professor of Energy and Climate Change
Universities of Manchester (UK) and Uppsala (Sweden)
Website: http://kevinanderson.info Twitter: @kevinclimate
Kevin Anderson holds a joint chair between the School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering (MACE) at the University of Manchester and the Centre for Environment and Development (CEMUS) at Uppsala University. He has just completed two years as the Zennström professor of climate change leadership at Uppsala and previously held the roles of deputy director and director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Kevin is research active with publications in Science, Nature and Nature Geosciences.
Kevin engages widely across all tiers of government (EU, UK and Sweden) on issues ranging from shale gas, aviation and shipping to the role of climate modeling (IAMs), carbon budgets and ‘negative emission technologies’. With Manchester colleagues, his analysis previously contributed to the framing of the UK’s Climate Change Act and the development of national carbon budgets.
Kevin has a decade’s industrial experience, principally in the petrochemical industry. He is a chartered engineer and a fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Speaker
Professor Kevin Anderson
Role: Professor for Energy and Climate Change
Organisation: Universities of Manchester (UK) and Uppsala (Sweden)
Travel and Contact Information
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C1
George Begg Building
Manchester
