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UN climate change panel selects four SEI experts for next report
EC/ECHO/François Goemans
Among the lead authors of the Fifth Assessment Report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
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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 lead 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 lead 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.
A testament of quality and relevance
- Having four authors invited by the IPCC demonstrates the quality and relevance of SEI's research, says 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. 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, he says.
- 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.”
About the authors
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.
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