Challenges and Relevance of the IPPC in Dealing with the Cllimate Crisis

The 2022 Conference of the Parties on climate change is taking place in Sharm El Sheick, Egypt from November 6-18, 2022 and will bring together political leaders, scholars, and activists from around the world to discuss potential solutions to our collective global climate crisis.

This year’s COP follows onward from the landmark Paris Agreement, negotiated at COP 21, which commits the global community to limiting global warming to 1.5 C above pre-industrial times. The decision to establish 1.5 C as a global threshold is not random and indeed is representative of a credible and evidence-based threshold that has taken several decades to understand, communicate, and agree to.

The science behind global climate policy decisions, such as the Paris Agreement threshold, stems from the assessment work conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and its various working groups. The 6th Assessment Report, along with several special reports collectively find that “the catastrophic impacts of climate breakdown are mounting quickly and may soon outpace humanity’s ability to adapt [and outlines] the inequities inherent in the climate crisis, stressing that the communities most vulnerable to climate impacts are also the least to blame”. Hundreds of top scientists from 195 countries contribute to IPCC reports, which are then reviewed by thousands of other experts and scrutinized through an approvals session involving leading policy makers from around the world.

In this presentation, Dr. Dawson will discuss the process and purpose of the IPCC assessment methodology drawing on her first-hand experiences as a contributing author to the Special Report on Oceans and the Cryosphere (2019) and as a lead author of Working group II of AR6 (2022). She will outline assessment findings as well as her views on the challenges and opportunities that exist, and the urgent need for collective action at all levels of society.

Dr. Jackie Dawson is a Canada Research Chair Full Professor in the Department of Geography, Environment, and Geomatics at the University of Ottawa and is the Scientific Director of the Canadian Network of Centers of Excellence, ArcticNet. She is an applied scientist working on the human and policy dimensions of environmental change in ocean and coastal regions and is considered an expert in Arctic shipping, Arctic tourism, and Arctic oceans governance. She has served on two Canadian Council of Academies’ Expert Panels, is an elected member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada and is a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society. She led the drafting of the 2018 G7 science statement focused on Arctic oceans and resilient communities, is a lead author on the IPCC AR6 and recently won the prestigious 2020 SSHRC Impact Connection award and 2021 Governor Generals Innovation award.

www.espg.ca

www.arcticorridors.ca

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

120 University Private, 120 University Private, Ottawa, Canada