In last week's show on Earth Hour, we had a quick chat to Dr. Ben McNeil, a Senior Fellow at the Climate Change Research Centre in the University of New South Wales, about the current state of knowledge on climate change and some of the policies that Australia and the world could implement to tackle the problem. This week I am putting up the longer, more wide-ranging interview I had with Ben on all things climate change. Ben is a very impressive young scientist and one of Australia's renowned climate experts, so tune in to hear about the latest climate change science as well as the current thinking and policy development going into the issue.
After completing his PhD in 2001, Ben worked as a research fellow at Princeton University before taking up his post at UNSW. In 2007, he was chosen as an expert reviewer for the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change and briefed his work to the Prime Minister. He was also recently elected to represent young scientists in the Federation of Australian Science and Technological Societies.
Ben's first book, The Clean Industrial Revolution, will be published in May 2009. In this book he discusses the particular challenges Australia faces regarding climate change. Per capita, Australia is one of the most carbon obese countries in the developed world. Our economy is highly dependent upon carbon exports as well as high rates of energy consumption. But Australia is also environmentally fragile - the soils are poor and the rainfall uncertain. If the world starts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Australia will be caught in a trap - our exports will not be acceptable on the international market, and our agriculture will decline due to the effects of climate change. We couldn't talk too much about the book due to an embargo by the publishers, so stay tuned, we'll have another chat later on in the year!
Listen to his podcast here:
