The future of climate science advice for policy

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The Future of Climate Science Advice for Policy Sir Mark Walport, Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government

Transcript of The future of climate science advice for policy

Page 1: The future of climate science advice for policy

The Future of Climate Science Advice for Policy

Sir Mark Walport, Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government

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Scientific

Communications

Policy

There are three challenges relating to climate change

2 The future of climate science advice for policy(Credit: Reuters)

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Mitigate

Adapt

Suffer

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There are three possible policy responses to climate change

(Credit: Harvey McDaniel)

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The policy challenge: Viewing difficult issues through lenses

4 Climate Change: Challenges for Science and Policy

Parkhill et al, Transforming the Energy System – Public Values, Attitudes and Acceptability, 2013 (UKERC)

(Credit: Thomas Shahan/CC BY-NC-ND-2.0)

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Source: Poortinga et al (2013)

As far as you know, do you personally think that the world’s climate is changing? (in %)

There is scientific consensus that the climate is changing, but the public is divided

Concern about climate change (in %) Possible Explanations

• Global economic downturn

• Sceptic voices in the media

• Increasing climate fatigue

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Communicating complex information is challenging

Mitigation/adaptation, Discount rate, pH, Gigatonnes, Petagrams, Billion tonnes (of carbon, carbon dioxide), PPM, eqCO2, Attribution, Negative emissions, Climate sensitivity, Anthropogenic, Multi-decadal oscillation, Datasets, Urban heat island...

Switch off words….

Excellent in one context, challenging in public engagement!

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Climate policy: Mitigation through reducing emissions

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In the UK we have legislation to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions. The 2011 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties have agreed to negotiate a global deal on emissions by 2015.

The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report will be important evidence in this process.

(Credit: UNFCCC)

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8 Climate Change: Challenges for Science and Policy

Science, technology and innovation: Challenges, and opportunities

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Climate policy: Adaptation to the impacts which are likely inevitable

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The 2012 UK Climate Change Risk Assessment identified risks across sectors, including agriculture, forestry, health, buildings and infrastructure

There are practical steps we can take to be more resilient to future climate

(Credit: Adelaide Advertiser)

(Credit: smatlin blogspot)

(Credit: Daily Mail)(Credit: IES JRC)

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Next steps for climate science

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• Measure the present

• Improve understanding of complexity

• Continue to refine models

• Communicate effectively(Credit: BODC)

(Credit: Reuters)

(Credit: Michael Jastremski/CC-BY-SA-2.0)

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@uksciencechief

www.bis.gov.uk/go-science