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Priestley Chairs are lead authors on UN Adaptation Gap Report

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Priestley Chairs Lea Berrang Ford and James Ford are lead authors on the Adaptation Gap Report: Towards a Global Assessment, published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

The report is launched today (7 November 2017) at an event at the UNFCCC climate conference COP23 in Bonn, Germany, with Lea Berrang Ford joining a distinguished panel of speakers to discuss “Ways forward to assess progress on adaptation at the global level and to bridge current and future adaptation gaps”.

Other speakers on the panel, which is moderated by Barney Dickson of UN Environment, include: Edith Ofwona, International Development Research Centre; Saleemul Huq, International Centre for Climate Change and Development; Julie Arrighi, Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre; Timo Lelter, GIZ, and Annett Möhner, UNFCCC.

The presentation of the report’s findings is by Anne Olhoff, UNEP DTU Partnership, another lead author of report.

This is the third Global Adaptation Gap Report to be published by UNEP, which takes the global goal on adaptation established in the Paris Agreement (2015) and asks questions about ways forward.

In the foreward to the report, Erik Solheim, head of UN Environment, points out the climate impacts being felt around the world, citing the damage done by hurricanes Maria and Irma as examples.

He emphasizes the “serious gap” between what is required to protect communities and what is already in place, saying, “We do not even know how to accurately measure the size of that gap to prioritise planning and investment.”

Solheim calls for decision makers to “take better informed and better co-ordinated precautions”.

The report, for which James Ford is lead author of Chapter 3 and Lea Berrang Ford is lead author of Chapter 5, recommends looking at sustainable development, disaster risk reduction and climate change impacts jointly, using a global framework.

Lea Berrang Ford

Lea Berrang Ford and James Ford joined the Priestley Centre in September as Chairs in Climate and Health and Climate Adaptation respectively. Lea Berrang Ford will be delivering her inaugural seminar for the Priestley Centre (together with the Sustainability Research Institute) on 22 November, entitled, “So What Now? Why epidemiologic research is failing to meet the grand challenge of climate change, and what we can do about it.”

Prof Berrang Ford will also be leading an interdisciplinary event on Environment and Health Research for the Priestley Centre on 29 November, to which University of Leeds academics working in these areas are invited to give lightning talks and join a networking lunch.

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