New ideas about how to talk, teach and write about Climate Change

Presented by: IPCC Head of Communication WGIII Dr Marion Ferrat

Ahead of the International Panel on Climate Change meeting in Christchurch in March 2018, the University of Canterbury is delighted to co-host, with Ngāi Tahu and Royal Society Te Apārangi, a free public discussion about new approaches to teaching and talking about climate change, which will be helpful for students, journalists, teachers and the public.

With recent record high temperatures and severe weather events causing flood and coastal damage many citizens of all ages reporting an increasing sense of anxiety and confusion, so how can we effectively teach climate change issue while moving beyond the inertia that is often associated with anxiety and confusion?

We are pleased to be joined in this panel by an exciting panel of climate communication experts, lead by IPCC Head of Communication WGIII: Dr Marion Ferrat

Dr Marion Ferrat is Head of Communications and Stakeholder Engagement for IPCC Working Group III, which assesses the options for reducing climate change. She previously worked as specialist on the Energy and Climate Change Committee in the UK Parliament, and led parliamentary engagement and capacity building programmes in Brazil, Morocco and Myanmar. She previously worked as a climate modeller in Beijing, focussing on land-atmosphere interactions and carbon emissions. She holds a PhD in palaeoclimatology and climate modelling, a Masters in Science Communication and a Masters in Geophysics from Imperial College, London.

Other Speakers include:

Dr Daniel Collins, a hydrologist at NIWA and obtained his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research examines the movement of water through the natural and human-modified water cycle, with a particular focus on climate change, and he was a contributing author to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report. He currently leads several research programmes on the impacts and implications of climate change, and how society can adapt. Daniel frequently discusses climate change science with government, community and industry groups, and the media, using social media and citizen science to expand engagement with the public

Rebecca Macfie, an award winning journalist who has written about business, environmental and social issues for three decades. A senior writer with the New Zealand Listener 2007-2018. In 2017 she was awarded a Wolfson Fellowship by the Newspaper Publishers Association, to spend 10 weeks at Cambridge University where she researched financial, economic and policy responses to climate change, resulting in a series of major articles for the Listener. She is the author of Tragedy at Pike River Mine, for which she won the Jesson Journalism award for her account of the 2010 mine disaster in which 29 men died.

Dr Deirdre Hart, a Senior Lecturer in Geography at University of Canterbury where she researches the physical, biological and human (built environment lifelines) processes and interactions in coastal environments. This includes temperate and tropical coastal and river-mouth science, engineering and management. Current projects include collaborations with Korea, New Zealand, Italy and the USA. Her research approach is multi-disciplinary, and she is an experienced research communicator.

Emma Puloka, a doctoral candidate from Tonga in UC's College of Education, Health and Human Development, researching conceptualizations of local environmental issues in Year 10 Science: talanoa from Tonga and Vanuatu. Prior to this she was the winner of a UC College of Science scholarship for the Bachelor of Science with Honours in Environmental Science.

More information

Associate Professor Bronwyn Hayward
Department of Political Science and International Relations

Phone: +6433695114 ext 95114
Email: Bronwyn.hayward@canterbury.ac.nz

Website: www.canterbury.ac.nz/arts/contact-us/people/bronwyn-hayward.html