UN climate change panel selects four experts from Stockholm Environment Institute for next report
Stockholm, 24 June 2010 − Four experts from Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) will be among the lead authors of the Fifth Assessment Report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due for publication in 2013-2014, the IPCC announced yesterday in Geneva. The report will provide the first full global update of the climate change knowledge base since 2007, when the IPCC published its Fourth Assessment Report and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
The four SEI authors will work for three years on different parts of the report. Professor Richard Klein will lead the preparation of the chapter “Adaptation opportunities, constraints and limits,” while Dr. Lisa Schipper will be an author of the chapter “Regional contexts.” These chapters form part of the assessment of Working Group II (WGII) on impacts, adaptation strategies, and vulnerability to climate change.
Dr. Sivan Kartha has been appointed author of the chapter “Sustainable development and equity,” and Dr. John Barrett will be a lead author on “Drivers, trends and mitigation.” Both chapters are part of the Working Group III (WGIII) report on mitigation response strategies.
“Having four authors invited by the IPCC demonstrates the quality and relevance of SEI's research.” said Dr. Schipper, who works out of SEI's Asia Centre at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
For Professor Klein, this will be the sixth assignment as an IPCC author. “Following the turmoil around the IPCC several months ago, there will be much greater public and political scrutiny than was the case in previous reports,” he said. “This is a good thing, and we are aware of the responsibility IPCC authors have to provide a credible and impartial assessment of climate risk.”
“It's a great honour to be asked to contribute to the foremost scientific assessment of climate change', said Dr. Barrett, from SEI's research center at the University of York, in the United Kingdom. “IPCC reports are enormously important to give a robust overview of the current state of knowledge, as well as providing input into the international climate negotiations and national decision-making.”
Dr. Kartha, of SEI's US Centre, based at Tufts University in Boston, said he is particularly pleased to have been invited to write about sustainable development and equity, “two concepts that are fundamental to an effective and politically viable response to climate change in which the development of the poorest must take place in a carbon constrained world.”
Professor Klein and Dr. Schipper are among the 10 authors who will represent Sweden in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, along with Deliang Chen, Markku Rummukainen, Rainer Sauerborn, Lennart Olsson, Ulf Molau, Elisabet Lindgren, Luis Mundaca, and Thomas Sterner. SEI authors Kartha and Barrett represent the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively.
Dr John Barrett is a Senior Research Associate at SEI working on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP). He led one of the UK’s largest projects on resource flows and modelling techniques for SCP, resulting in novel approaches to measure and monitor SCP including: the Ecological Footprint concept, household expenditure models and using carbon dioxide emissions as a consumption indicator. His work is used by the UK government and agencies to guide their low carbon strategies.
Dr Sivan Kartha is a Senior Scientist at SEI who's research focuses on the analysis of policies relating to climate change, assessments of renewable energy technologies, and exploration of sustainable development strategies. He is co-creator of the Greenhouse Development Rights framework (GDRs) which examines the equitable sharing of responsibility to tackle climate change.
Professor Richard Klein is a geographer with more than fifteen years of research experience on human vulnerability and adaptation to climate variability and change. He is an internationally leading expert on adaptation science and climate policy and has contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change. He is editor-in-chief of the international academic journal Climate and Development, which is hosted by SEI.
Dr Lisa Schipper is a Research Fellow at SEI, with over ten years of professional experience in development and adaptation to climate change (policy, science and practice). Lisa holds a PhD in Development Studies from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research,University of East Anglia (2004). Lisa's research interests include examining socio-cultural aspects of vulnerability to climate change and other natural hazards.
Contact for more information and interviews
Robert Watt (robert.watt@sei.se, 00 46 73 707 85 89)
Stockholm Environment Institute is an independent, international research institute specializing in sustainable development and environment issues. From fundamental research at the cutting edge to capacity building with developing countries, our goal is to bridge science to policy.
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