Populations in an area outside of Manila have extended onto coastal mudflats and waterways that are susceptible to flooding and rising sea levels. Top U.S. science advisor John Holdren says this global problem has been amplified by climate change.
Photograph by George Steinmetz, National Geographic Creative
You are in Paris for the final week of the United Nations' climate talks, where more than 195 countries are scrambling to draw up a pact to lower global greenhouse gas emissions. What is your role this week? Why are you here?
One of my own fields for many decades now has been the causes, consequences, and remedies of climate change. So I am here, in part, so that if questions arise in negotiations that depend on details of science, I can provide those details.
But I am also here amplifying the Obama Administration’s messages about why climate change requires an international solution in which everybody participates, both with respect to reducing the emissions that are driving climate change and with respect to increasing preparedness and resilience for the changes in climate that are already ongoing and that we will not be able to stop overnight.
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