Keeping under 1.5°C: are we doing enough to avoid dangerous climate change?

Keeping under 1.5°C: are we doing enough to avoid dangerous climate change?

Thursday, 11 October 2018 - 6:00pm to 7:45pm
Have we missed the opportunity to avoid dangerous climate change?  Australia has already experienced over 1 degree of warming with an increase in extreme heat events and severe bushfire weather.

What actions need to be taken to get on track to avoid a greater than 1.5°C future?  If we don't act, what could our future climate look like?

To coincide with the launch of the IPCC Special Report Global Warming of 1.5°C,  as well as the 10 year anniversary of the Garnaut Climate Change Review 2008 (updated in 2011), the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society and the University of Melbourne Climate and Energy College present a panel of experts to discuss the implications of this important report for Australia and the World.

Panelists: 

  • Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Director of the Global Change Institute (GCI) and Professor of Marine Science, The University of Queensland (Co-Author of the IPCCSpecial Report Global Warming of 1.5°C)
  • Prof Ross Garnaut AC, Professorial Fellow in Economics at the University of Melbourne, Chair of the Energy Transition Hub and President of SIMEC ZEN Energy 
  • Prof Robyn Eckersley, Head of Political Science, School of Social and Political Sciences, plus Climate and Energy College, University of Melbourne
  • Dr Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, Senior Research Associate and ARC Future Fellow, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW
Event Location: 
Kathleen Fitzpatrick Theatre
Arts West - West Wing, Building 148B
3010 Parkville , VIC
Victoria
Videos
Speakers

Prof Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is the inaugural Director of the Global Change Institute and Professor of Marine Science at the University of Queensland. Prof Hoegh-Guldberg is deeply-motivated by a desire to communicate science effectively, undertake game-changing research and to find high-impact solutions to address several of the most pressing and serious challenges facing humanity worldwide, such as climate change, food security, clean energy and population growth.

Prof Hoegh-Guldberg has worked extensively with the media, believing that scientists need to extend the impact of their science using the full set of communication options. He has published works that include over 200 refereed publications and book chapters and is one of the most cited authors within the peer-reviewed literature on climate change and its impacts on natural ecosystems.

Robyn Eckersley

Robyn Eckersley was educated at the University of Western Australia, Cambridge University (UK) and the University of Tasmania, and taught political science at Monash University from 1992-2001 before joining the University of Melbourne in 2002. She has published widely in the fields of environmental politics, political theory and international relations, with a special focus on the ethics and governance of climate change, including in journals such as Political Studies, European Journal of International Relations, Review of International Studies, Ethics and International Affairs and Global Environmental Politics. Her book The Green State: Rethinking Democracy and Sovereignty (2004) won the Melbourne Woodward Medal in 2005 for the best research in Humanities and Social Sciences and was runner up in the International Studies Association’s Sprout Award for 2005 for the best book on Environmental Studies. She was a Visiting Professor at the Research Center for Global Welfare, The Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Chiba University in Japan in 2008, a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford, from August 2009 to January 2010; and served as Arne Naess Chair in Global Justice and the Environment at the University of Oslo, November 2010 to January 2011. She was elected as Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2007. She as also served as Chair of the Organising Committee of the Sixth Oceanic Conference on International Studies (OCIS VI), held at the University of Melbourne on 9-11 July 2014; Chair of the Oceanic Conference on International Studies Transition Committee and Co-convenor/Treasurer of the Australian Political Studies Association Environmental Policy and Politics Research Standing Group. She has served as Director of the Master of International Relations Program 2011-2012 and Chair of the Discipline of Political Science from 2008-2010, 2014 and second semester 2015.

UNSW

Sarah is a senior research associate, 2014 DECRA, 2018 Future Fellow awardee in the Climate Change Research Centre at UNSW. Sarah has undertaken two postdocs at the CSIRO division of Marine and Atmospheric Research, as well as the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science.  Due to her research activities and communication profile, Sarah was named a 2013 NSW Young Tall Poppy. Her research interests reside in temperature extremes, namely heatwaves. Sarah has investigated trends in heatwaves both globally and over Australia, as well as exploring the role of human activity behind such changes. Her research program includes understanding future changes in heatwaves, and how they may be driven by humans, as well as meteorological systems and natural climate phenomena.

Web tools and Projects we developed

  • Open-NEM

    The live tracker of the Australian electricity market.

  • Paris Equity Check

    This website is based on a Nature Climate Change study that compares Nationally Determined Contributions with equitable national emissions trajectories in line with the five categories of equity outlined by the IPCC.

  • liveMAGICC Climate Model

    Run one of the most popular reduced-complexity climate carbon cycle models online. Used by IPCC, UNEP GAP reports and numerous scientific publications.

  • NDC & INDC Factsheets

    Check out our analysis of all the post-2020 targets that countries announced under the Paris Agreement.