Professor Sir David King, KB ScD FRS

The UK Government's Chief Scientific Advisor: appointed in October 2000. Sir David was born in South Africa in 1939, and after an early career at the University of Witwatersrand, Imperial College and the University of East Anglia, he became the Brunner Prof. of Physical Chemistry at the University of Liverpool in 1974. From 1988-2005 he held the position of 1920 Prof. of Physical Chemistry at the University of Cambridge and was Master of Downing College from 1995-2000 and was also Head of the University Chemistry Department (1993-2000). Sir David continues as Director of Research, at the University of Cambridge.

View clips

Professor John Mitchell, OBE FRS

Director of Climate Science, Met Office: Professor Mitchell joined the Met Office in 1973 after completing a PhD in atomic physics in Belfast. He spent most of his time since working on the understanding and prediction of climate changes, apart from two short spells forecasting. His research has particularly focused on identifying the uncertainty in cloud climate feedbacks, and studying the attribution of recent climate change to human activity. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and received the OBE for his contribution to the science of climate change. He has been actively involved with leading roles in the IPCC since its inception.

View clips

Colin Challen MP

MP for Morley & Rothwell: In addition to Colin Challen's work as a constituency MP for Morley & Rothwell, he is also the founding Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change. Colin was elected to the House of Commons in June 2001 and is a member of the Environmental Audit Select Committee. He has a long standing interest in environmental issues.

View clips

Professor Chris Rapley, CBE

Director of the Science Museum. Professor Rapley retired as Director of the British Antarctic Survey in 07. Prior to this he was Executive Director of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, and before that, Prof. of Remote Sensing Science and Associate Director of UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory. He has a degree in physics from Oxford, an M.Sc. in radioastronomy, and Ph.D. in X-ray astronomy. He is a Fellow of St Edmund's College Cambridge, an Honorary Prof. at UCL and UEA and a Distinguished Visting Scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

View clips

Professor Peter Cox

Professor of Climate System Dynamics, Exeter University: Professor Cox is an expert in the role of the carbon cycle in climate change. He studied Physics and Theoretical Physics at the Universities of Warwick and Cambridge, before completing a PhD in Plasma Physics at Imperial College London. Thereafter, Professor Cox spent 14 years at the Met Office's working on the representation of vegetation in the Hadley Centre's climate model, and two years as the Science Director for Climate Change research at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology , before taking-up his current position in September 2006.

View clips

Dr Tim Palmer, FRS

Head of the Probability Forecasting and Diagnostics, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF): Dr Palmer has undertaken ground-breaking work on the development and use of probabilistic forecasting methods. He has won many awards including the American Meteorological Society Charney Award and the Royal Meteorological Society Buchan Award. He is a fellow of the Royal Society, and is co-chair of the Scientific Steering Group of the World Climate Research Programme’s Climate Variability and Predictability (CLIVAR) project. He has been a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and coordinator of two European Union climate prediction projects.

View clips

Dr Vicky Pope

Vicky Pope is responsible for providing Climate Change advice from the Met Office Hadley Centre to Government. She has specific responsibility for delivering the Integrated Climate Programme, which is funded by the UK goverment's Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs and Ministry of Defence, together with some smaller contracts for other government departments and the European Union. Vicky Pope gained a BA honours degree in Mathematics in 1982 from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in Meteorology in 1990 from the University of Reading. She joined the Met Office in 1982 and became a manager of stratospheric research in 1991 and of climate model development in 1996. She has been a programme manager in climate research since 2002, and is now Head of Climate Change for Government.

View clips

Dr Myles Allen

Head of the Climate Dynamics Group, University of Oxford's Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics Dept: He is the Principal Investigator of Climateprediction.net and is largely responsible for starting this project. He has worked at the Energy Unit of the UN’s Environment Programme, the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He contributed to the 3rd Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as a Lead Author on detection of change and attribution of causes, and was a Review Editor on global climate change for the IPCC 4th Assessment Report. His research focuses on the attribution of recent climate change and their impact on global climate model simulations of the future.

View clips

Professor Stephen Schneider

Professor of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, USA: Prof. Schneider is a Co-Director of both the Centre for Environment Science and Policy and the Interdisciplinary Programme in Environment and Resources, and Prof. by Courtesy in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. He was honoured with a MacArthur Fellowship and the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Westinghouse Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology. Prof. Schneider has served many successive White House administrations. He received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering and Plasma Physics from Columbia University. He studied the role of greenhouse gases and suspended particulate material on climate at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He founded and edits the journal Climate Change and has authored or co-authored over 450 papers, proceedings, legislative testimonies, and books, and has been actively involved with the IPCC since its inception.

View clips

Sir John Houghton, CBE FRS

Chairman of the John Ray Initiative: Sir John Houghton was the co-chair of the Scientific Assessment for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 1988 until 2002. He was the lead editor of first three IPCC reports. He was previously Prof. in atmospheric physics at the University of Oxford, and was the Deputy Director of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and a former Chief Executive at the Met Office, where he founded the Hadley Centre. Sir John chaired the Royal Commission on Environmental pollution from 1992 to 1998 and was President of the Royal Meteorological Society from 1976 until 1978. He has received many awards and recognition in his distinguished career, including the Japan Prize, the Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal, the International Meteorological Organisation Prize, Honorary Membership of the American Meteorological Society, Honorary Member, the Global 500 Award under the United Nations Environmental Programme, the Royal Meteorological Society's Symons Memorial Medal. He is also an Honorary Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford.

View clips

Rt Hon Margaret Beckett MP

then Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Mrs Beckett has been the MP for Derby South since 1983 and prior to that was MP for Lincoln from 1974 until 1979. Mrs Beckett became the first woman Foreign Secretary after the Cabinet reshuffle of May 2006. Previously, at the time of the UK G8 Presidency, she was Secretary of State at DEFRA. She served as a Government Whip in 1975 and was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department of Education and Science in 1976, serving in that position until 1979. Between 1979 and 1983, Mrs Beckett worked as Principal Researcher for Granada Television. Mrs Beckett was appointed shadow Minister for Social Security from 1984 to 989, shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 1989 to 1992, and shadow Leader of the House from 1992 to 1994. She was elected as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party between 1992 to 1994 and became Leader between May and July 1994 after the death of the Rt. Hon John Smith MP. She then served as shadow Secretary of State for Health from 1994 to 1995, and shadow Secretary of State for Trade and Industry from 1995-1997. She was appointed President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when the Labour Party was elected to Government in May 1997. In July 1998 she was appointed President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons.

View clips

The underlying science

An overview of the evidence base for climate change, how the data has been has been gathered and how it demonstrates that human activity is responsible.

View clips

The carbon cycle

An overview of the significance of high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, and how the natural balance of has been interrupted by our heavy reliance on fossil fuels.

View clips

The greenhouse effect

An overview of the greenhouse effect, the gasses involved and why it is important.

View clips

The Antarctic and sea level change

What can Antarctica tell us about climate change and an overview of the primary cause of sea level rise.

View clips

Modelling the future

An overview of how we go about modelling climate change and the factors that influence the reliability of the models.

View clips

The influence of science on policy

An overview of the relationship between scientists and the policy makers.

View clips

What we need to do...

From the individual to nation state; an overview of what we need to do to reduce the impact of climate change for all; now and into the future.

View clips