From 30 November to 11 December, the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21/CMP11), will be taking place in Paris. Paris 2015 will be a crucial conference, as it needs to achieve a new international agreement on the climate, applicable to all countries, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius.

An event taking place on Monday (16 November), organised by the Cambridge Centre for Climate Science (CCfCS), aims to provide insight into the scientific and political landscape leading up to the Paris summit and beyond.

The speakers at ‘Understanding the Paris Climate Summit’ will discuss some of the climate research taking place at Cambridge, and how it relates to the negotiations taking place in Paris.

“The Paris summit is hugely significant, but it will be primarily focused on the political issues surrounding climate change,” said Professor Peter Haynes of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and one of the founding members of CCfCS. “There’s a breadth of climate-related research in science and technology happening at the University, and we want to continue to build on that.”

Speakers at Monday’s event will be Sir David King, UK Special Representative for Climate Change, who played a key role in many of the pre-Paris negotiations; Professor Sir Richard Friend from the University’s Cavendish Laboratory, who will discuss future energy prospects; Dr Emily Shuckburgh from the British Antarctic Survey, who will share her personal view of what we know and what we don't know about climate science; and Professor John Pyle from the Department of Chemistry, who will discuss why the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer worked, and why similar protocols to control carbon emissions have been much more difficult.

The Cambridge Centre for Climate Science (CCfCS) has been established to promote research and other activities in Climate Science going on at several Departments of the University of Cambridge (Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Archaeology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Geography, Plant Sciences and Scott Polar Research Institute) and at the British Antarctic Survey.

All members of the University are welcome to attend – the full programme is available here. Online registration, while not required, would be helpful for the organisers to determine numbers.