James Renwick, Climate Scientist

Intepeople Speaker Series, Nelson Tasman Chamber of Commerce.

Climate change is driving increased extreme weather events and is bringing rising sea levels to a beach near you. Unchecked climate change through the rest of this century has the potential to wreck the global economy and to cause misery for billions of people.

The way to avoid the worst outcomes is to turn off the tap of carbon dioxide emissions, fast. This presentation will outline the state of the science and will talk about how we respond. What role can New Zealand businesses play? What kind of government policies would be useful? And what can individual citizens do to bring about a bright future?

James has nearly four decades’ experience in weather and climate research. His main field is large-scale climate variability and climate change, including such things as El Niño, the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds, and the impacts of climate variability and change on New Zealand and the Antarctic.

James was a lead author for the last two Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and is a Convening Lead Author for the new 6th IPCC Assessment. He was recently awarded the Prime Minister’s 2018 prize for Science Communication.