COP 26: green shoots or storm clouds?
- Location:
- Eric Sunderland Lecture Theatre, Main Arts Building, Bangor University / Zoom Online
- Time:
- Wednesday 30 March 2022, 17:00–18:30
ONLINE PUBLIC LECTURE BY PROFESSOR GARETH WYN JONES, PRESENTED IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE UNITED NATIONS ASSOCIATION, MENAI BRANCH.
Professor Gareth Wyn Jones
The lecture will be conducted in English
Last November’s COP 26 in Glasgow, trumpeted as mankind’s last best hope to commit, collectively, to take tangible steps to solve the growing crises arising from human-induced climate change and global warming, has largely disappeared from the public memory.
Its successes were few. Even optimistically we are still on a road to near catastrophe. Now reducing the cost of fossil fuels and the economic squeeze dominates the discourse in the UK. In the US, Biden’s Green Deal has been stymied. China and India continue their largely coal-driven growth. What chance the situation can be retrieved in COP 27 in Scharm el Sheikh or COP 28 in the United Arab Emirates?
Technology has a role but “To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom”. This is ever more essential in trying to resolve global warming and other great crises confronting humanity. What is it about us, our economic and social priorities and our relationships with energy, that makes it all so fraught?
R Gareth Wyn Jones B.Sc. (Wales). M.Sc. (Brit. Columb), D.Phil., D.Sc. (Oxon.) FLSW is Professor Emeritus at Bangor University. One time Professor in Biochemistry he established the Centre for Arid Zone Studies, managed and later chaired the Strategic Plant Science Research Programme of UK Department for International Affairs. He was appointed Chief Scientist and Deputy Chief Executive for the Countryside Council for Wales on its establishment in 1991, while also acquiring wide international experience as chair the scientific committee of the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) in Aleppo, Syria, Secretary General of the International Dryland Development Commission and, jointly with Dr Einir Young, co- ordinating EU interdisciplinary, multinational projects on the sustainability of communal rangelands in southern Africa (MAPOSDA). With Dr Havard Prosser he wrote a report on ‘Land Use and Climate Change’ to Welsh Government. In 2019 he published a book ‘Energy the great driver: Seven Revolutions and the challenges of climate change”.
This lecture is being held without social distancing, face coverings are recommended for everyone.
The lecture is free and open to everyone. Audience members will have the opportunity to ask questions. The event is organised jointly by Bangor University and the Menai Branch of the United Nations Association.
