• Leading figures from business, public policy and not-for-profit sector to gather for event on Friday 7 December
• Students and members of the public to consider how to generate popular awareness and determination to avert environmental disaster
• It's not rocket science. It is our actions and decisions that will make the difference.

How can we harness the collective will of the people to avert disaster? Experts are to meet with students and members of the public at the University of Warwick to share their insights.

The free public event will set out the means available to us as individuals, as businesses, and as a society to help prevent dangerous climate change.

`What can we do about climate change?' will be held on Friday 7 December from 10am to 12 noon in Lecture Theatre MS01 in the Zeeman Building. It will comprise three 20 minute talks followed by a Q&A session.

The University's School for Cross-Faculty Studies is hosting a panel of experts drawn from the worlds of business, public policy and the not-for-profit sector to consider solutions to climate change with students and the general

public. The panel, representing a wide range of expertise and experience, consists of:

• Joan MacNaughton, Chair of the Board of The Climate Group
• Wilfrid Petrie, CEO of Engie UK (formerly Gulf-Suez)
• Matthew Bell, Frontier Economics and former Chief Executive of UK Government Committee on Climate Change
• Mark Kenber, Advisory Council Chair, Reneum and Board Member, Community Energy England

Organiser Professor David Mond, Warwick Mathematics Institute, said: “Most of us feel completely powerless to act to prevent disaster. We have to explore the reasons and find ways of unleashing the popular will to survive and to protect future generations.

“The situation for climate change is urgent, not to say desperate, at least according to the latest scientifc reports and the gathering evidence. We have seen steadily rising temperatures, last year's exceptional hurricanes, and this year's droughts, heat waves and wildfires. We are doing nowhere near enough to face up to the problem."

“I hope that people will take away two messages: it's vital that we do something, and there is something we can do."

This event forms part of the module ‘Challenges of Climate Change’, taught as part of the Global Sustainable Development degree in the University of Warwick's School for Cross-Faculty Studies. The degree takes an interdisciplinary perspective to prepare students for the realities of a rapidly changing social, economic and environmental global order. The School challenges its students to think critically and creatively, to question, debate and examine the impacts of solutions upon global society. Their students are global citizens who understand the key problems facing the contemporary world and are capable of deploying a range of intellectual tools to tackle them.

`What can we do about climate change?' takes place on Friday 7 December from 10am to 12 noon in Lecture Theatre MS01 in the Zeeman Building, University of Warwick. It is open to everyone. Please register to attend, at www.warwick.ac.uk/climatechange/event

29 November 2018

Contact:

Peter Thorley

Media Relations Manager (Warwick Medical School and Department of Physics)

Email: peter dot thorley at warwick dot ac dot uk

Tel: +44 (0)24 761 50868

Mob: +44 (0) 7824 540863