This event will be held in-person at The Australian National University and online. If you register to attend in-person and your plans change, please cancel your ticket to allow others to attend.

What options do we have to limit global warming to 1.5°C and well below 2°C, and are we on track to achieve this goal?

On 4 April, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is scheduled to release its latest report on Mitigation. The report provides the world’s definitive assessment of trajectories, options and implications of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming.

The report assesses global greenhouse gas emissions scenarios, opportunities to reduce emissions in all sectors and to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, experiences with emissions reduction action to date, and what can be done to achieve strong climate action. It also highlights the fundamental role mitigation plays in achieving global priorities like sustainable development and a range of other national objectives.

Join us at this event to hear directly from several report authors about its key findings including how they relate to Australia.

Speakers:
 

• Professor Frank Jotzo – Head of Energy, The Australian National University Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions; IPCC Synthesis Report Author and Lead Author Working Group III
• Professor Xuemei Bai – Distinguished Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University; IPCC Lead Author Working Group III
• Professor Jacqueline Peel – Director of Melbourne Climate Futures, University of Melbourne; IPCC Lead Author Working Group III
• Dr Andy Reisinger – Visiting Fellow, The Australian National University Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions; Board member of He Pou A Rangi, New Zealand's Climate Change Commission; IPCC Vice-Chair and member of Working Group III editorial team
• Professor Tommy Wiedmann – Professor of Sustainability Research, School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UNSW Sydney; IPCC Lead Author Working Group III

Moderator:
 

• Professor Mark Howden, Director and Head of Climate, The Australian National University Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions, IPCC Vice-Chair

Those who attend in-person are invited to stay for informal discussion and light refreshments following the official conclusion of the event.

This event is co-hosted by the ANU Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions, Climate Futures, University of Melbourne.

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About the speakers

Professor Frank Jotzo is professor at the Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy, and Head of Energy at the ANU Institute for Climate Energy and Disaster Solutions. His roles with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6^th Assessment Report are as a lead author of the policy chapter and co-author of the Summary for Policymakers of Working Group III, and member of the core writing team of the Synthesis Report. Frank’s research spans economics and policy of climate change and energy, including decarbonisation, domestic policy choice and international dimensions of climate policy. He is joint editor-in-chief of the academic journal Climate Policy, has advised governments in Australia and international organisations, and contributed to policy assessments in countries in the Asia-Pacific.

Distinguished Professor Xuemei Bai joined The Australian National University in 2011, as a professor of Urban Environment and Human Ecology at the Fenner School of Environment and Society. Prio to ANU, she was a Senior Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO, visiting professor at Yale University, and senior researcher at environmental research institutes in Japan.  She is a Visiting Professor at The University of Tokyo. Professor Bai's research focuses on several frontiers of urban sustainability science and policy, including drivers and consequence of urbanization, structure, function, processes, and evolution of urban socio-ecological systems, urban metabolism, urban sustainability experiments and transition, cities and climate change, and urban environmental policy and governance, and cross scale translations between planetary level boundaries and targets into cities.  

Professor Jacqueline Peel is a Professor at Melbourne Law School and a leading, internationally recognised expert in the field of environmental and climate change law. She has published widely on these topics including leading monographs on Climate Litigation and Principles of International Environmental Law. Jackie serves as the Treasurer of the Australian & New Zealand Society of International Law, a Co-Chair of the American Society of International Law’s Signature Initiative on Climate Change and is a Lead Author in Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report. She is an editor of Transnational Environmental Law and co-founder of the Women’s Energy and Climate Law Network. Jackie was a Fulbright and Hauser Scholar at NYU and has held visiting scholar positions at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.

Dr Andy Reisinger is a member of the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and vice-chair of Working Group III (Mitigation). He also served as coordinating lead author in two major IPCC climate change reports released in 2014. Andy is also a board member for He Pou A Rangi, the New Zealand Climate Change Commission. The Commission is an independent Crown entity set up to provide independent, evidence-based advice to government on climate issues, including on emission budgets, vulnerability assessments, and monitoring of emission reduction and adaptation plans. Prior to this role, Andy was the Deputy Director (International) of the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre, a fully-government funded Centre working in partnership with industry to develop and extend ways of reducing New Zealand’s and global agricultural greenhouse gas emissions. Andy’s personal research interests focus on the role of agriculture in domestic and international climate change policy, the role of methane within the climate system and in climate policy, and uncertainty and its implications for decision-making for both mitigation and adaptation.

Professor Tommy Wiedmann is Professor of sustainability research and is leading the Sustainability Assessment Program at UNSW Sydney, Australia. In teaching and research, he is guided by the question on how to achieve concurrent human and planetary well-being. Tommy has long-standing expertise in integrated, quantitative sustainability assessment, industrial ecology and environmental footprint analysis. He is leading the development and application of the Industrial Ecology Virtual Laboratory (IELab), a collaborative research platform for environmentally extended multi-region input-output analysis. His recent research is focusing on the relationship between sustainability transformations and planetary boundaries. Tommy is also an Adjunct Science Leader at CSIRO and a Lead Author of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In 2012, he received the Thomson Reuters Citation Award in Australia and has been listed as Highly Cited Researcher annually since 2015.

Professor Mark Howden is Director of the Institute for Climate, Energy & Disaster Solutions at The Australian National University. He is also an Honorary Professor at Melbourne University, a Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and is the Chair of the ACT Climate Change Council. He was on the US Federal Advisory Committee for the 3rd National Climate Assessment, was a member of the Australian National Climate Science Advisory Committee and contributes to several major national and international science and policy advisory bodies. Mark has worked on climate variability, climate change, innovation and adoption issues for over 30 years in partnership with many industry, community and policy groups via both research and science-policy roles. Issues he has addressed include agriculture and food security, the natural resource base, ecosystems and biodiversity, energy, water and urban systems.

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Background

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the global science body providing policymakers with regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation. The IPCC provide these assessments approximately every 7 years.

The IPCC is currently in the Assessment Report 6 (AR6) reporting cycle. The reports this cycle are:

1. The Physical Science Basis – released 9 August 2021

2. Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability – released 28 February 2022

3. Mitigation – schedule to be released 4 April 2022

4. Synthesis Report – scheduled to be released in September 2022

Additional information

• Registration is required for this event.
• Venue information and details on how to access the event online will be sent to participants closer to the event date.
• For those attending in person, please note that masks must be worn by audience members during this event.
• Accessible parking spaces are available around campus should you require them.
• To help keep everyone safe, please ensure that you are familiar with, and follow, the advice from  ACT Health regarding COVID-19.
• If you do not feel well, please refrain from attending this event.

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