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Should we re-freeze the Arctic? Exploring climate repair with Professor Sir David King

31 Oct 2023 18:00 – 20:00
Online and in person

As the planet edges closer to a climate change tipping point, UK policymakers need bold solutions to prevent catastrophe. And while work to transition to net zero remains essential, some argue it’s time to turn to radical climate repair to buy much-needed time: from removing CO2 from the atmosphere to solar geoengineering to deflect the sun’s rays.

In his Minister for the Future piece, Professor Sir David King, founder of the Centre for Climate Repair, chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group and former Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK Government urges us to consider a unique climate repair technique: refreezing the arctic through temperature stabilisation technology.

He joined us live in conversation on 31 October 18:00-20:00 with Alan Rusbridger, Editor of Prospect Magazine, to dive deeper into the role of geoengineering technology in the fight against climate change. Alongside an expert panel from the world of climate science, we explored the technologies on the table, the controversies of using climate repair and how far geoengineering can really be used as an effective part of our toolkit.

Should we refreeze the arctic

The opinions expressed in this event recording are those of the speaker. For more information, view our full statement on external contributors.

Speakers

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Speaker: Professor Sir David King

Professor Sir David King is Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, at the University of Cambridge, founder of the Centre for Climate Repair at Cambridge University, and chair of the Climate Crisis Advisory Group. Previously he held the position of permanent Special Representative for Climate Change from September 2013 until March 2017. He was the Government's Chief Scientific Advisor from 2000 to 2007, during which time he raised awareness of the need for governments to act on climate change and was instrumental in creating the Energy Technologies Institute. Sir David has published over 500 scientific papers, covering policy, climate change, and physical chemistry. Elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1991; Foreign Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002; knighted in 2003; made “Officier dans l’ordre national de la Légion d’honneur” in 2009. In Feb 2022 he was awarded the AAAS David and Betty Hamburg Award for Science Diplomacy.

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Chair: Alan Rusbridger

Alan Rusbridger is editor of Prospect Magazine. Previously he was editor-in-chief of The Guardian from 1995 to 2015 and then Principal of Lady Margaret Hall at the University of Oxford until 2021. He also chairs the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and sits on the Facebook Oversight Board. During his time at the Guardian, both he and the paper won numerous awards, including the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service Journalism. The Guardian grew from a printed paper with a circulation of 400,000 to a leading digital news organisation with 150m browsers a month around the world. He launched now-profitable editions in Australia and the US as well as a membership scheme which now has 1m Guardian readers paying for content. He was born in Zambia, was educated at Cambridge and lives in London. He is the co-author of the BBC drama, Fields of Gold. He is a keen amateur musician and the author of Play it Again. His memoir of journalism and its future, Breaking News, was published in 2018. His latest book, News and How to Use it, was published in 2020.

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Akshat Rathi

Akshat Rathi is an award-winning senior climate reporter for Bloomberg News. He is the host of Zero, a weekly climate podcast for Bloomberg Green and writes a weekly newsletter on climate solutions. He has a PhD in chemistry from the University of Oxford, and a BTech in chemical engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai. He has worked for Quartz and The Economist. His work has been cited in widely read global publications, including New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal and Financial Times.

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Alice Bell

Alice is Head of Policy, Climate and Health at Wellcome. She sits as a bridging point between the Policy team and colleagues building research activities in the new Climate and Health team. She also works extensively with external partners across climate and health – within academia, civil society and the private sector. Prior to joining Wellcome in July 2022, Alice co-ran the climate action charity Possible, working on everything from campaigns for clean home heating to research into solar-powered railways. Before joining the charity sector, she worked as an academic and as a freelance writer and editor, specialising in the politics of science, technology and the environmen

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Gaia Vince

Gaia Vince is a journalist, writer and broadcaster and an honorary senior research fellow at UCL. She writes for publications including the Observer and Guardian, and presents science programmes on BBC R4. She is the author of the groundbreaking work Adventures In The Anthropocene for which she spent 2.5 years travelling to over 50 countries to map the ways humans are changing the planet. She draws off this and other first hand experience of the state of the planet in Nomad Century.

Event information

31 Oct 2023 18:00 – 20:00