Climate Change 2010: Where do we go from here?

10 March 2010

Professor Will Steffen

Over the past few months, the climate change challenge has taken some odd twists and turns. The COP15 meeting in Copenhagen was widely condemned in the press as a failure; the Australian Government has been unable to get its emission trading scheme through the Senate; Europe and North America have been hit by cold and snowy winters; and there has been a surge in public attacks on the veracity of climate change science.

What is going on? This talk focuses on the post-Copenhagen climate - both physical and political- examining what the credible science is really saying about the state of the climate system, and what might be in store for us in the coming decades, including the prospects for rural and regional Australia. Looking beyond the stories in the popular media about what was not achieved at COP15 the progress that actually was made in Copenhagen will be explored. With the recent surge in sceptic attacks on climate science this talk will also examine why the climate change challenge has suddenly become so much more difficult.

Broad Topics: Arts and Social Sciences, Asia and the Pacific, Physical Science

Sub-topics: Environment, Policy & Political Science, Science Communication

Areas: ANU College of Medicine, Biology and Environment, ANU College of Physical Sciences

Professor Will Steffen is Executive Director of the ANU Climate Change Institute and is also Science Adviser to the Australian Government's Department of Climate Change. From 1998 to mid-2004 he served as Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, based in Stockholm, Sweden. His research interests span a broad range within the fields of climate change and Earth System science, with an emphasis on incorporation of human processes in Earth System modelling and analysis; and on sustainability, climate change and the Earth System.

This talk was presented by The National Institute for Rural and Regional Research (NIRRA) and the ANU Climate Change Institute (CCI).