COP26: Climate scientists available to speak with media
Climate scientists from Northwestern University are available to speak with media this week to help explain the urgent need for action at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26).
Daniel Horton leads the Climate Change Research Group (CCRG) at Northwestern University. The CCRG uses numerical models, environmental observations, statistical analyses and machine learning techniques to ask questions pertinent to Earth’s (and other planets’) climates, including extreme weather events, public health impacts of climate change and the evolution of Earth’s climate, among others. He can be contacted by reaching out to Mohamed Abdelfattah at mohamed@northwestern.edu.
Quote from Professor Horton
“The effects of climate change are here. Any delay in reducing greenhouse gas emissions will make things worse. With this science-based motivation in mind, there is very little wiggle room for the heads of state, policy makers, and interested parties at COP26: greenhouse gas emission reduction strategies must be agreed upon and action must be taken.
“I’m glad that America has returned to a position of leadership in the fight against climate change. Solutions to the challenges of climate change require global cooperation, and the lack of U.S. leadership over the past several years has been a barrier to success.”
Brad Sageman is a professor in the department of earth and planetary sciences at Northwestern University. His main research interest is understanding the processes that control burial of carbon in ancient sediments and the relationships between changes in the global carbon cycle and ocean-climate interactions. He can be contacted by reaching out to Mohamed Abdelfattah at mohamed@northwestern.edu.
Quote from Professor Sageman
“As we face the already-apparent impacts of climate change, COP26 provides a critical opportunity for a global progress report and a call to arms, so to speak. We know now that the initial commitments of the Paris Accord were not sufficient. Current assessments of global greenhouse gas emissions tell us unequivocally that the actions we undertake in the next decade will be critical to the goal of global net-zero emissions by 2050.
“The signs of planetary-scale changes in the climate system are becoming impossible to ignore. It is imperative that our leaders continue to ratchet our climate commitments upwards to limit global temperature increase as much as possible. Hopefully, COP26 will result in substantive progress toward those goals.”
David N. Rapp is a professor in both the School of Education and Social Policy and the Department of Psychology and an expert on the cognitive mechanisms responsible for successful learning and knowledge failures, particularly as related to fake news. Rapp’s latest research is on the impact of false equivalency in media coverage of climate change.
Quote from Professor Rapp
“Although the consensus among climate scientists is that climate change is occurring and is a global problem, people routinely also encounter the arguments of climate change skeptics. Our experiments show that presentations including both pro- and anti-climate change voices in a falsely balanced way can misinform people’s beliefs about climate change and scientific consensus. The upcoming UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) will no doubt afford contrarian voices an outlet for what seems like debate. Exposure to such contrarian opinion can undermine the well-intentioned and empirically validated ideas to be discussed at COP26.”