Our Common Future under Climate Change, Paris, 7-10 July 2015

posted 14 Jul 2015, 15:58 by Bodeker Scientific   [ updated 14 Jul 2015, 15:58 ]
Penehuro Lefale attended “Our Common Future under Climate Change Conference (CFCC15)” held in Paris, July 7-10, 2015 http://www.commonfuture-paris2015.org. 

The four day conference was the largest forum for the scientific community to get together ahead of the 21st UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP21), also to be held in Paris in December 2015. The CFCC15 built on the results of the IPCC AR5. It addressed key issues concerning climate change in the broader context of global change. The Conference was organized under the umbrella of ICSU, Future Earth, UNESCO and major French research institutions, with the support of the French Government. The Conference has four overarching objectives: 
  1. Provide state of the art scientific knowledge on climate change, one year after the release of IPCC AR5: physical basis of climate change, impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, storylines and scenarios 
  2. Explore a wide range of pathways combining climate change mitigation and adaptation, and sustainable development 
  3. Assess the potential for evidence based solutions to climate change challenges and 
  4. Contribute to a science-society dialogue en route to COP21. 
The Conference was structured around the following daily themes: 
  • Day 1: State of Knowledge on Climate Change
  • Day 2: Landscapes of Our Common Future
  • Day 3: Responding to Climate Change Challenges
  • Day 4: Collective actions and Transformative Solutions. 
Lefale participated in “Climate Observing Systems” Session Side event, where he gave a talk on “The Pacific Islands Global Climate Observing System (PI GCOS): Where to Next?”, the title of his and Dr Howard Diamond’s poster for the Conference. Another poster presented at the session with Bodeker Scientific’s involvement was “The role of the GCOS Reference Upper-Air Network (GRUAN) in climate research”, by G. Bodeker1,  M. Sommer2, R. Dirksen2 and P. Thorne3.  Dr Peter Thorne presented the poster on behalf of Greg Bodeker et al. Lefale and Thorne also participated in two poster sessions held on the first and third days of the Conference.

In the closing plenary, Scientific Committee Chair Professor Chris Field, summed up the conference key messages: “We are moving to a post-carbon era, where climate change mitigation and adaptation are combined with other goals to build a sustainable future,” noting the deep commitment of scientists to be part of the solution.

Field also presented the conference Outcome Statement, which emphasised that, for a two in three probability holding warming to 2°C or less, we have a remaining carbon budget of about 20 years’ worth of current emissions. To achieve a stable climate, emissions eventually must go to zero. Field also emphasised that science has an essential role in highlighting connections between objective observations of the Earth’s state and the human questions raised by climate change: “how we think about the interests of the poor versus the rich, the future versus the present, and nature versus economies.”

Lefale gratefully acknowledged the kind financial and related support by the following organisations that enabled him to attend CFCC15: US NOAA GCOS Program, University of Colorado (UCAR) and Bodeker Scientific.


(1)  Bodeker Scientific, Alexandra, New Zealand
(2)  Deutscher Wetterdienst, Lindenberg, Germany
(3)  Maynooth University, Department of Geography, Maynooth, Ireland