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The Science and Politics of Climate Change

Al Gore and the IPCC won the Nobel Peace Prize, Australia has effectively isolated the USA by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and the negative effects of climate change are now rarely out of the media. Politicians of all persuasions now attest to the seriousness of global warming, alongside business and public organisations. But what does science tell us about how to respond to climate change? Have scientists been involved in political campaigning? Is the debate really over, and are the threats so great and the science so certain that there's only one course of action?

Climatologist and contributing author to the IPCC Reports, Professor Mike Hulme examines frequent misconceptions about the science and politics of global climate change.

Professor Mike Hulme is the Founding Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, UK, and is based in the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia where he has worked for the last 18 years. His general research interest is global climate change and the science/policy interface, but specialising in the construction and application of climate change scenarios for impact, adaptation and integrated assessment.

Hulme has prepared climate scenarios and reports for the UK Government, the European Commission, UNEP, UNDP, WWF-International and the IPCC. He was a co-ordinating lead author for the chapter on 'Climate scenario development' for the Third Assessment Report of the United Nations IPCC, as well as a contributing author for several other chapters.

Hulme is speaking at at the 2007 Battle of Ideas conference hosted by the Institute of Ideas in the UK.
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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY!
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." -- Ronald Reagan (1986)