International climate conference opens

Another unique aspect of the Conference highlighted by Dr Asrar was that almost one third of the participants will be students or early career scientists. He noted that equally important to identifying future challenges and opportunities for climate research was forming the next generation of scientists who can address these issues.

Dr Asrar fielded many questions from the press officers present, in particular about recent extreme climate events and their link to anthropogenic activities. Dr Asrar explained that this was a major topic for the Conference and that a great deal of research was ongoing which would help identify what aspects of such events could be attributed to climate warming and assess future probabilities for such extreme events.