One international framework agreement, one international legal protocol, 18 Conference of Parties, four expert assessment reports … and no change

Dr Andrew Jarvis of the Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University will deliver this seminar on the topic of climate change entitled "One international framework agreement, one international legal protocol, 18 Conference of Parties, four expert assessment reports … and no change" at the James Hutton Institute in Aberdeen. It will be broadcast live to the Dundee site.

Abstract

We have been investigating and talking about climate change for a long time, but the response to the risks the research has communicated has been non-existent if we look at the trajectory of global emissions. If blame were needed it is easy to single out political institutions. However, analysis of the patterns of global energy use and CO₂ emissions during the industrial era point to another explanation based on the laws of biophysics.

This talk explores this alternative view of the growth of industrial society, attempting to show how energy is used to sustain its growth around 2.4% per annum and how systemic decarbonisation of the global energy portfolio is a pre-requisite for this growth.

Biography

Andrew is a senior research fellow in the Lancaster Environment Centre and works on applying systems and control methodologies to socio-environment problems. His current work is on CO₂ emissions forecasting and climate geoengineering.