Sen. John Kerry to keynote Rice University’s Baker Institute conference on climate change

CONTACT: Franz Brotzen
PHONE: 713-348-6775
E-MAIL: franz.brotzen@rice.edu

Sen. John Kerry will keynote Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, the Energy & Environmental Systems Institute and the Shell Center for Sustainability climate change, politics and economics conference Feb. 9.

The conference, titled “Beyond Science: the Economics and Politics of Responding to Climate Change,” will bring together leaders committed to educating the public about the impact of global warming and discuss their experiences in crafting public policy in this area. In particular, it will address alternative policies to constrain carbon in the environment. Some of those include taxation of carbon, creating pollution credits and creating regulations to cut carbon dioxide.

Sen. John Kerry, who has taken a lead by introducing legislation to reduce carbon emissions, will open the conference with a keynote address at 8 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 9.

Steve Koonin, the chief scientist at British Petroleum (BP), will deliver a noon keynote titled, “Corporate Green House Gas Policies.” In addition, Timothy Killeen, director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, will speak on the International Panel on Climate Change 2007 Report and Climate Change Modeling.

Kerry’s appearance at Rice is timed to coincide with one of the nation’s most influential energy conferences, CERAWeek, which begins Monday, Feb. 11. An industry conference on the future of energy, CERAWeek attracts more than 1,600 senior executives, policymakers and financial decision makers to Houston to gain new perspectives and insight into the global forces shaping the energy landscape.

Support for the Feb. 9 event at the Baker Institute was generously provided by the UK Science and Innovation Section, British Consulate-General Houston.

For more on the conference, go to http://www.bakerinstitute.org/climatechange.cfm.