Pardee Director Delivers Board of Trustees Lecture on Climate Change Impacts

Anthony Janetos, Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, recently gave a lecture at the third installment of a Boston University Board of Trustees forum series on fossil fuel divestment on April 28. Drawing on the findings from the U.S. National Climate Assessment, Prof. Janetos discussed the impacts of climate change on the United States. Prof. Janetos explained why climate change is important, and gave an overview of what scientists know and how they know it. In addition, he provided examples of the current and future implications of climate change and compared various mitigation and adaptation strategies. 

The forums were hosted by the Board of Trustees Advisory Committee on Socially Responsible Investing (ACSRI) in response to two initiatives, from both faculty and students, petitioning the University to divest its financial investments from fossil fuels. In the fall of 2014, the ACSRI formally began considering fossil fuel divestment as its next topic for review and is hosting this forum series on climate change as part of its educational activities, after which it will determine whether or not to submit a recommendation to the Board of Trustees to alter the University’s fossil fuel investment practices. 

Prof. Janetos served on the external federal advisory committee for the third U.S. National Climate Assessment, which was released in 2014. He was also a co-convening lead author on the mitigation chapter of that report. Prof. Janetos played a role in all three of the National Climate Assessments, serving in the Federal Advisory Committees for each, as a co-chair in the first assessment, and as a lead author on ecosystem impacts  in the second. He has also led in the development of a national system of indicators for climate change impacts and responses on behalf of the Federal Advisory Committee. In addition, he served as a co-coordinating lead author for the Second Working Group chapter on regional contexts for the fifth report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

For more information about the forum series, click here.