Synopsis:Climate change is an issue that has attracted much national and international attention over the last decade. It would appear to be a heavily contested scientific issue if you read some newspapers. An overview will be presented of the latest scientific information on climate change, its causes and its impacts. Special emphasis will be given to the human health impacts of climate change, both direct and indirect. Finally, the global emission reductions needed to avoid dangerous climate change will be discussed, including Australia’s fair share of those emission reductions.

Speaker:David Karoly is an internationally recognised expert in climate change and climate variability, including greenhouse climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion and interannual climate variations due to El Niño-Southern Oscillation. He was heavily involved in preparation of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released in 2007, in several different roles. He is a member of the Climate Change Authority, established in 2012 to provide independent advice to the Australian government on climate change and emission reductions. He is also a member of the Science Advisory Panel to the Australian Climate Commission, the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists, and the National Committee for Earth System Science of the Australian Academy of Science.