Panel Debate: Communicating climate change.

                 Tuesday, 14 November 2006, 15:15-16:45,

              African Tulip Tree, COP12, COP/MOP2, Nairobi.

The aim of this event is to discuss to what degree the general public still
has the impression that climate scientists strongly disagree about the
extent to which climate change is human induced, and what may have caused
this impression.

Has the journalists’ struggle to achieve a balanced presentation given the
so-called climate skeptics greater journalistic coverage than they deserve?
Or are the majority of climate scientists simply unable to communicate their
message effectively? What concrete steps can be taken to reduce the problems
with respect to communication?

Speakers:
Rajendra K. Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC). What are the main challenges and bottlenecks in communicating the
IPCC’s assessment reports?

Pål Prestrud, Director CICERO and vise chair Arctic Climate Impacts
Assessment (ACIA). Experiences from ACIA information work and the media
coverage of the ACIA report compared to the IPCC assessment reports.

Nick Nuttall, Spokesperson United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
How clear and simple does a message has to be to reach the public?

Jules Boykoff, Assistant Professor, Department of Politics and Government at
Pacific University, Oregon. Journalistic Balance as Global Warming Bias –
Creating controversy where science finds consensus.

Liisa Antilla, Human Geographer. What role do US mainstream media play in
the dissemination of misinformation about climate change?

Discussion leader
Alister Doyle, Environmental journalist, Reuters.

This side event is organized by Center for International Climate and
Environmental Research – Oslo (CICERO). CICERO’s mission is to provide
reliable and comprehensive knowledge about all aspects of the climate change
problem.                www.cicero.uio.no/index_e.asp