BGS to host 2 day climate change conference

The BGS is hosting a two day conference titled “Climate Change: Impacts and Opportunities”, on June 16-17, 2010. The conference is aimed at UK institutions and businesses that are likely to be impacted by both climate change and the 2008 Climate Change Act. The goal of the conference is to highlight through specific case studies the broad range of environmental impacts due to climate change, the equally broad range of opportunities due to climate change, and the approach that can be adopted to properly assess and develop adaptation strategies.

The rational for such a conference is this: It is generally acknowledged that some degree of climate change is inevitable, and future strategies will increasingly rely on society's ability to adapt. Adapting to climate change will go beyond knowing what the future temperature might be or how much more (or less) rainfall we might expect. Adapting to climate change means understanding how the natural and urban environment responds to different weather patterns, understanding the sensitivity of landscapes to likely changes in weather patterns.

Climate change also brings challenges and opportunities in the energy sector, all of which is inextricably tied to environmental impact and legislated mitigation efforts.

The Climate Change Act 2008 begins to address some of these issues, but real economic impacts will likely require significantly more assessment than those spelled out in the Act.

Some of the important questions that need to be answered are "How will the costs of adaptation compete with other important issues facing regional and local governments?" and "What are the cost implications for businesses with climate change and how will they be addressed?"

The list of confirmed speakers we have at the event now includes:

• Professor Anne Glover — Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland
• Dr Chris West — Director, UK Climate Impacts Programme
• Professor Andrew Gouldson — Director, ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics & Policy
• Mr Chris Murray — Director, UK Transmission, National Grid
• Dr Stephen Brown — Director, Carbon Capture and Storage C0₂ Sense Yorkshire
• Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer — Director of the Centre for Innovation in Carbon Capture and Storage, Nottingham University
• Professor Dermot Roddy — Science City Professor of Energy, University of Newcastle
• Mr Rowan Douglas — Chairman, Willis Research Network, Willis Group Limited

The conference website is live and we are accepting registrations. The website is at the following link and it is also available from the BGS homepage.

 http://www.bgs.ac.uk/climateconference/home.html