Speaker to Address Economics of Climate Change Policy

The future of international cooperation on climate policy will be the focus of an address Wednesday afternoon on the University of Kansas campus.

Richard Bradley is head of the energy efficiency and environment division at the International Energy Agency in Paris. The division analyzes energy efficiency and climate change policy. His lecture “Was Copenhagen the Death Knell? Next Steps in International Climate Change Policy” is set for noon to 1 p.m., Wednesday, March 24, at the Burge Union Gridiron Room. It’s the second in a series of lectures this semester sponsored by the KU Transportation Research Institute. Free pizza will be served starting at 11:30 a.m.

“Richard has been steadfastly involved in the policy part of climate change,” said Bob Honea, director of the Transportation Research Institute. “He’s looking at it more from what makes economic sense, not just what makes environmental sense. Doing things for economic reasons can provide countries much more incentive to adopt new climate change policies.”

Bradley’s lecture comes in the wake of an international climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December that included dozens countries and was designed to produce a framework for future climate change mitigation, but yielded little in the way of actual policy change around the globe.

Transportation contributes as much as 60 percent of the greenhouse gases associated with climate change, said Honea, and that’s why KU TRI is sponsoring the series of lectures on climate change and transportation.

Stephen Schneider, author of “Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth’s Climate,” has an address planned for May 3 on KU’s campus.