We were delighted to welcome Lord Anthony Giddens on 17th March 2015 to speak on The Politics of Climate Change. The event was fully booked some weeks beforehand and the Great Hall was packed on the night. Lord Giddens did not disappoint in presenting a clear and pressing case for the need for urgent action to address the problem of climate change.
Below is a film of the whole lecture in case you want to listen again, or if you were not able to get a ticket. We are most grateful to Lord Giddens for allowing us to use it.
Lord Anthony Giddens presented the Policy and Politics Annual Lecture, in Bristol, on Tuesday 17th March. The theme of the lecture was to consider what recent progress has been made on climate change and what stops us doing more. Lord Giddens concluded his lecture with a proposal for the need for a new paradigm to provide the change needed to generate the radical solutions that are now necessary.
Lord Anthony Giddens first wrote “The Politics of Climate Change” in 2007/08, a time of optimism and hope, when change to reduce carbon emissions seemed top of the agenda both nationally and globally. It was a time of opportunity, seized by politicians like Al Gore who published his book and produced the film “An Inconvenient Truth” to great acclaim. It was also the time of the biggest United Nations meeting on climate change in Copenhagen where over 100 nations met to discuss measures to address the problems of climate change and reducing carbon emissions.
Lord Giddens moved us through this period of optimism to one of dashed hopes and increasing fears following the lack of agreement in Copenhagen. He talked about the difficulties of measuring climate change and the range of indicators needed to assess impacts. He argued that despite the advancements in science and knowledge, there are still many sceptics who refuse to acknowledge the very real changes we are experiencing. Indeed, one of the problems with climate change, he explained, lies in its irreversible nature, the fact that once greenhouse gases are in Continue reading →
UPDATE – THIS EVENT IS NOW FULLY BOOKED. You can still #askgiddens a question during the lecture via our live twitter feed @policy_politics
We are delighted to welcome Lord Anthony Giddens to speak on the Politics of Climate Change at our Annual Lecture on the evening of 17th March 2015 in the Great Hall of the Wills Building at the University of Bristol. The lecture is free of charge to attend though numbers are limited so tickets must be booked in advance at bit.ly/1y0vM2Q
Climate change is arguably one of the greatest threats to a stable future for humanity. Lord Giddens’s book The Politics of Climate Change (Bill Clinton called it ‘A landmark study in the struggle to contain climate change, Continue reading →
by Felicity Matthews, Associate Editor of Policy and Politics
Happy New Year, everyone! I don’t know about you, but I am so looking forward to having a quiet and uneventful 2015. Boring, even. Nothing on the horizon other than uninterrupted expanses of nothingness… If only! As if! This is 2015! The year of the general election! The battle to save the NHS! The battle to save party politics as we know it! This is 2015! The 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta! The 750th anniversary of the first English parliament! The 70th anniversary of VE Day!
Quite clearly, 2015 is already lining up to be a year to remember. A year in which democracy is both celebrated and put to the test; a year in which party lines and battle lines are drawn; a year in which identities and alliances are simultaneously dismantled and forged anew. And quite clearly, 2015 is lining up to be a year of unprecedented Continue reading →
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