One of the world’s foremost experts on climate change will be discussing novel, integrated methods for dealing with the threat of rising world temperatures in a lecture in Cambridge next week.
One of the world’s foremost experts on climate change will be discussing novel, integrated methods for dealing with the threat of rising world temperatures in a lecture in Cambridge next week.
Mohan Munasinghe, Vice Chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize will be delivering Clare College’s annual Distinguished Lecture in Economics and Public Policy.
His talk will address one of the major challenges in dealing with global warming, namely, how best it can be combated without diverting resources from other pressing development issues, such as poverty and food security.
Munasinghe will suggest that the answer to this problem lies in convincing governments to integrate climate change policies with their strategy for sustainable development.
He will also argue that such action is vital to the future of the planet, since these two issues are strongly connected.
Climate change will affect development prospects, particularly for some of the world’s poorest countries who are likely to be the hardest hit by global warming, and the rate of climate change will depend on whether we are able to pursue environmentally friendly methods of development.
Emphasising some of the most important findings of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, he will draw on a range of measures against climate change, as well as an economic assessment of their costs and benefits to suggest a new approach to the problem.
In particular, he will advocate the use of ‘sustainomics’, a practical system for balancing the competing economic, social and environmental demands of responses to global warming.
Sustainomics draws on three basic principles: making development itself more environmentally friendly, balancing the different dimensions of sustainable development, and transcending traditional academic boundaries to produce the most effective solutions.
Through balancing these competing demands, policy-makers can resolve the inevitable trade-offs and decide on the most advantageous strategies, and Munasinghe will illustrate with case studies the fruits that sustainomics has borne.
Mohan Munasinghe graduated from Clare College in 1967 and has spent more than 35 years in a range of distinguished public service roles. He has acted as Senior Energy Advisor to the President of Sri Lanka and Advisor to the US President's Council on Environmental Quality, as well as serving as Senior Manager and Senior Adviser in Sustainable Development for the World Bank.
He has won a number of international prizes and medals for his research, and authored over 85 books and three hundred technical papers on sustainable development, environment, information technology, energy, water resources, transport, and economics.
The annual Clare Distinguished Lecture in Economics and Public Policy is sponsored by The Smithers & Co Charity, established by Andrew Smithers, a graduate in Economics from Clare College, Cambridge.
Its purpose is to raise the profile of Economics at Cambridge and at Clare, by attracting speakers of international distinction to Cambridge to give topical lectures on aspects of economics and public policy.
Mohan Munasinghe’s lecture, A Policy Framework for Integrating Climate Change Policy into Sustainable Development Strategy: Economic Analysis and Beyond, will take place at 5pm on Wednesday 14 May in Lady Mitchell Hall, on the Sidgwick Site. Attendance is free and open to all.
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