2 Clark University Expert Authors On Report On Climate Change

From Clark University: Two climate experts from Clark University’s Department of International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE) will serve as lead authors for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), the next major report on climate change.

IDCE Director and Professor Edward Carr and Associate Professor Elisabeth Gilmore are among the 721 experts who will contribute to the report, which will be released in 2021. Both Carr and Gilmore will be lead authors for chapters in the IPCC Working Group II report, which focuses on the impacts, adaptation and vulnerability to climate change.

IPCC reports are widely considered the most important scientific foundation for international politics on climate change. IPCC Assessment Reports provide governments, at all levels, with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies, and are a key input into the international negotiations to tackle climate change.

“It is rare and exciting for a department of our size to have more than one faculty member as a lead author of an IPCC Assessment Report,” said Professor Carr, noting that Clark experts have the same or an even greater level of involvement in preparing these reports as do experts at several Ivy League schools in New England. “It speaks to the strength IDCE and Clark have in the area of climate change adaptation, and the ways in which this expertise is woven deeply into our research and teaching.”

Professor Carr is a lead author for “Climate Resilient Development Pathways,” a chapter focused on the vulnerability of socio-economic and natural systems to climate change. The chapter will feature viable future adaptation pathways for various people and places in the world, and effective strategies for building resilience to a changing climate now and in the future.

“This chapter reflects my own personal interests and experience; I’m honored to contribute to something with such tremendous potential to influence policy decisions on adaptation and resilience over the next decade and beyond,” said Professor Carr.

Professor Carr is a geographer and anthropologist whose career and research focus on exploring alternative ways of improving human well-being. He has worked in rural sub-Saharan Africa on issues of development and global change among various rural communities.

Professor Gilmore is a lead author for the chapter on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation in North America. She will draw upon her research evaluating the benefits, costs and risks from climate change across multiple sectors, including energy, air quality, and issues related to security and conflict.

“As a first-time author, it is a privilege to be involved in preparing the Sixth Assessment Report,” said Gilmore. ”This work is critical for identifying opportunities and barriers to address both near-term and long-term climate risks in this region.”

“The Sixth Assessment Report will update our knowledge on climate change, its impacts and risks, and possible response options, and play an important role in implementing the Paris Agreement," said IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee. “These author teams, drawn from the hundreds of excellent nominations the IPCC was fortunate to receive, provide us with the necessary expertise across a range of disciplines to conduct the assessment.”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change. It was established by the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in 1988 to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments concerning climate change, its implications and risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation strategies.

Founded in 1887 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Clark University is a liberal arts-based research university addressing natural, social and human imperatives from local to global scales. Nationally renowned as a college that changes lives, Clark is a transformative force in higher education, established within a diverse and welcoming community. Clark puts education into action by combining a robust liberal arts curriculum with life-changing world and workplace experiences. Clark’s faculty and students work across boundaries to develop solutions to complex challenges in the natural sciences, psychology, geography, management, urban education, Holocaust and genocide studies, environmental studies, and international development and social change. The Clark educational experience embodies the University’s motto: Challenge Convention. Change Our World.

Photo courtesy of Clark University