Three Lecturers of The University of West Indies (UWI) were among those honoured in October 2007 when former US Vice President, Albert Arnold ‘Al’ Gore Jr., and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) were jointly awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has cited “their efforts to build up and disseminate knowledge about man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

The IPCC is composed of a Task Force on Greenhouse Gas Inventories and three Working Groups, which have, in turn, brought together thousands of scientists and officials from over one hundred countries. Since its establishment in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), the IPCC has worked to assess scientific, technical, social and economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts, and options for adaptation and mitigation. Over the past two decades, the Panel has achieved greater certainty as to the scale of global warming.

In September 2007, the IPCC presented to the Royal Geographical Society its Fourth Assessment Report (AR4), titled Climate Change 2007. AR4 unequivocally showed the warming of the climate system, stating that “most of the observed increase in the globally averaged temperature since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

AR4, which is a compilation of three separate Working Group reports, provided a comprehensive, up-to-date assessment of the current state of knowledge on climate change. The Working Group One (WG1) report focused on the physical science of climate change, WG2 examined the future likely impacts of climate change on the planet, while WG3 examined issues related to the mitigation of climate change, such as issues dealing with the reduction of Green House Gas concentration in the atmosphere.

Dr Anthony Chen, a Jamaican Professor (retired) in Applied Atmospheric Physics at UWI Mona Campus, Jamaica, and Former Visiting Scientist (1995) at the Center for Ocean Land Atmosphere Studies (COLA), was a Lead Author of ‘2007: Regional Climate Projections’ (Chapter Eleven) in the WG1 report. In a section devoted specifically to the small islands of the world, the report said that it was “likely” that sea levels would rise on average during the century around the small islands of the Caribbean Sea, Indian Ocean and northern and southern Pacific Oceans. The report further stated that all Caribbean, Indian Ocean and North and South Pacific islands were “very likely” to warm during this century. (The term “likely” in IPCC terminology means between 66% and 90% probability, while “very likely” indicates over 90% probability.)

The WG2 contribution to AR4, titled Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, also spoke to the Caribbean region. It described Caribbean islands as “especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change”, and listed several environmental and economic outcomes of climate change, including several threats to vital infrastructure, reduced value of tourism development, and increased invasion of non-native species.

“It’s really not an environmental issue at all,” remarked Dr Leonard Nurse, a Barbadian Senior Lecturer in Coastal Management at The Centre for Resource Management and Environmental Studies (CERMES), UWI Cave Hill Campus, Barbados. Dr Nurse was a Coordinating Lead Author of ‘Small Islands’ (Chapter Sixteen) of the WG2 report.

A former Permanent Secretary (Environment), in Barbados’ Ministry of Physical Development and Environment (2001-2004) and former Director of Barbados’ Coastal Zone Management Unit (1988-2001), he has been continuously involved with the IPCC since 1992. Before AR4, he was a Lead Author of a chapter on ‘Coastal Zones & Small Islands’ in the first Assessment Report, published in 1995, then Coordinating Lead Author for chapter on ‘Small Island States’ Second and Third Assessment Reports, published in 1998 and 2001 respectively.

From this perspective of longstanding involvement with the IPCC, Dr Nurse explained that the extreme vulnerability of the Caribbean region was not a pure science issue, but arose from a combination of social, economic and environmental issues, such as the islands’ small size, remote location, openness of economy, and limitation in physical space for relocation. Dr John Agard, a Senior Lecturer in Life Sciences at the UWI St. Augustine Campus, Trinidad (1986-2001), who was a Lead Author in the WG2 report, would seem to agree.

“When I teach my students, I don’t only teach the science. It’s not enough for them to know science; they have to know politics,” said Dr Agard, a UWI scientist who straddles the realms of environmental policy and education. In addition to his full-time responsibility at UWI, Dr Agard is also involved with a number of national and international policy development bodies, including the Environmental Management Authority of Trinidad and Tobago, which he now chairs, and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Caribbean Sea Ecosystem Assessment (CARSEA), which he co-leads with newly appointed UNEP Deputy Executive Director, Angela Cropper (another UWI alumna).

“When first-year undergraduate students come into UWI, I tell them, from the very first lecture, that I’m recruiting them to a cause. I tell them that the strategy is one of creating an ever-widening circle. I need many people to go out there armed with knowledge—not just knowledge of the science, but of law and politics, and of how things work in the real world—so that they can have an influence.”

For Dr Agard, teaching at UWI is part of this wider “strategy”. His mission statement—“to equip as large a number of people as I can with the tools to make a difference”—captures his philosophy of bridging the gap between transferring scientific knowledge at the tertiary level and developing environmental policy at the national, regional and international level.

“Sometimes you have people who are interested in the environment, who are very vigorous in protesting. And they will march, they will write letters to the newspapers, and so on, but they will die eventually, or they will go off the scene,” said Dr Agard, contrasting the consensus-driven and science-based approach to other methods of accelerating changes in policy.