\n“I am honored to be giving a keynote address at this important conference. We are at a crossroads when it comes to dealing with the threat of human-caused climate change. We must make a concerted effort if we are to avoid dangerous and potentially irreversible changes in climate. Such an effort requires that the scientific community remain engaged with stakeholders, policymakers, and other academics and opinion leaders as chart a path forward that builds\u00a0on the historic 2015 Paris climate agreement. That is precisely what the Pacific Climate Change Conference 2018 seeks to do, and I couldn\u2019t be more pleased to be a part of it.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Prof Daniel Nocera<\/h2>\nPatterson Rockwood Professor of Energy in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University<\/h3>\n
Daniel G. Nocera is the Patterson Rockwood Professor of Energy at Harvard University. He is a leading researcher in renewable energy. He accomplished the solar fuels process of photosynthesis\u2013the splitting of water to hydrogen and oxygen using sunlight and translated this science to produce the artificial leaf, which was named by Time magazine as Innovation of the Year for 2011. He has since elaborated this invention to accomplish a complete artificial photosynthesic cycle. To do so, he created the bionic leaf, which uses the hydrogen from that artificial leaf and carbon dioxide from air to make biomass and liquid fuels. His bionic leaf, which was named by Scientific American and the World Economic Forum as the Breakthrough Technology for 2017, performs artificial photosynthesis that is ten times more efficient than natural photosynthesis. These science discoveries set a course for the large-scale deployment of solar energy in a distributed fashion, especially for those in the emerging world. His research contributions in renewable energy have been recognized by several awards, some of which include the Leigh Ann Conn Prize for Renewable Energy, Eni Prize, IAPS Award, Burghausen Prize, Elizabeth Wood Award and the United Nation\u2019s Science and Technology Award and from the American Chemical Society the Inorganic Chemistry, Harrison Howe. Kosolapoff and Remsen Awards. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Indian Academy of Sciences. He is Editor-in-Chief of Chemical Science and is a frequent guest on TV and radio, and is regularly featured in print. He founded the energy company Sun Catalytix and its technology is now being commercialized by Lockheed Martin.<\/p>\n
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Dr Patila Malua-Amosa<\/h2>\nDean, Faculty of Science, National University of Samoa<\/h3>\n
Patila Amosa, PhD is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science and Dean, Faculty of Science at the National University of Samoa. She has contributed to pre-tertiary and tertiary education through curriculum development, setting national and regional examinations and conducting in-service training for science teachers. With Climate Change impacts evident in both fresh and marine resources of island communities, Dr Amosa\u2019s areas of research have focused on chemical and microbiological assessment of water resources in Samoa and marine biogeochemistry, particularly on the impacts of ocean acidification on the dissolution of biogenic skeletons.<\/p>\n
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Sir Geoffrey Palmer<\/h2>\nDistinguished Fellow, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington<\/h3>\n
Barrister, Harbour Chambers, Wellington; Distinguished Fellow, Faculty of Law and Centre for Public Law, Victoria University of Wellington; Global Affiliated Professor, College of Law, University of Iowa; Visiting Professor Queen Mary, University of London. <\/strong><\/p>\nBorn in Nelson, Sir Geoffrey Palmer QC was a law professor in the United States and New Zealand before entering New Zealand politics as the MP for Christchurch Central in 1979.
\nIn Parliament he held the offices of Attorney-General, Minister of Justice, Leader of the House, Minister for the Environment, Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister.
\nSir Geoffrey is a Distinguished Fellow of the New Zealand Centre for Public Law and the Law Faculty at the Victoria University of Wellington. He has an extensive list of publications in legal periodicals and is the author or co-author of 12 books.<\/p>\n
\n“I am going to this Conference because climate change is the most important issue facing humankind.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Julian Aguon<\/h2>\nFounder, Blue Ocean Law<\/h3>\n
Julian Aguon\u00a0is the founder and visionary behind Blue Ocean Law,\u00a0a progressive law firm that operates at the forefront of contemporary international law while remaining rooted in respect for the myriad peoples of the Pacific region. Devoted to breaking new ground in the areas of international human rights and environmental law, Julian, a native son of Guam, is a United Nations-recognized expert on the international law of self-determination. Licensed to practice law in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Republic of Palau, and Guam, Julian has served as attorney of record, legal advisor, and\/or consultant to the Guam Legislature, the Association of Pacific Island Legislatures, the Pacific Island Health Officers Association, the Local Atoll Governments of Rongelap and Utrik,\u00a0the NMD Corporation of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, the Federated States of Micronesia-based Micronesian Shipping Commission, the Fiji-based Pacific Network on Globalisation, and other civil society organizations in the Pacific and Europe.<\/p>\n
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Prof D. Kapua\u2019ala Sproat<\/h2>\nAssociate Professor & Director of the Native Hawaiian Law Center<\/h3>\n
Prof Kapua Sproat is Director of the Environmental Law Clinic, Acting Director of the Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law, and an Associate Professor of Law at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii. She teaches courses in Native Hawaiian Law, Environmental Law, and Legal Research and Writing. In addition to her teaching, Prof Sproat assists with all aspects of Ka Huli Ao’s program work, including Native Hawaiian student recruitment and retention, community outreach and education, and fund development. Her work for the Environmental Law Clinic involves supervising law students research and undertake real environmental law cases, with a focus on indigenous rights. Her areas of scholarship and interest include Native Hawaiian law, indigenous rights, and natural resource protection and management.
Prior to joining the faculty, Prof Sproat spent nine years as an attorney in the Hawai\u2018i office of Earthjustice, a national, public interest environmental litigation firm. She litigated state and federal cases under the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, State Water Code, and various Hawai\u2018i environmental laws, including the ground-breaking litigation to return diverted stream flows to public trust and other community uses, including traditional Hawaiian agriculture and aquaculture.
In 2016, she published an article in Stanford Environmental Law Journal on \u201cAn Indigenous People\u2019s Right to Environmental Self-Determination: Native Hawaiians and the Struggle Against Climate Change Devastation\u201d. We have invited Prof Sproat to speak on her article on the effects of climate change on Native Hawaiian culture. Prof Sproat has agreed to also give a public lecture on the evening before the conference starts, Tuesday, 20 February 2018, with Julian Aguon and Ani Mikaere.
Prof Sproat\u2019s visit is funded by the New Zealand Law Foundation.<\/p>\n
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Prof Elisabeth Holland<\/h2>\nProfessor of Climate Change, Pacific Center for Environment and Sustainable Development, University of the South Pacific<\/h3>\n
Professor Elisabeth Holland is the Director of the Pacific Center for Environment and Sustainable Development (PaCE-SD, and the University of the South Pacific\u2019s Professor of Climate Change. Professor Holland is passionate about working collaboratively with communities, and networks of practice to support climate resilient development practices that protect the health of the Pacific\u2019s Big Ocean States (BOS). She and her team have worked in 160 communities in 15 Pacific Island countries: Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor L\u2019este, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
\nBefore coming to USP, Professor Holland was internationally recognised for her work in the Earth System. She is an author of four of the five IPCC reports having served as a US, German and Fiji representative and a co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for her contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
\nWith a career spanning more than three decades, Professor Holland is a Leopold Fellow, led USP\u2019s delegation to support 8 Pacific governments in negotiating the Paris Agreement, served as a professor at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena Germany, and Senior Scientist & leader of the Interdisciplinary Biogeosciences Program at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, USA.<\/p>\n
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Aroha Te Pareake Mead<\/h2>\nIndependent researcher<\/h3>\n
Aroha Te Pareake Mead is an independent ressearcher from Ng\u0101ti Awa and Ng\u0101ti Porou (M\u0101ori), Aotearoa New Zealand. She has been involved in M\u0101ori and indigenous bio-cultural heritage and conservation issues for over thirty years at local, national, Pacific regional and international levels and has published extensively in these fields. She is currently on the Kahui M\u0101ori for the Deep South Climate Change National Science Challenge, the Karanga Aotearoa Repatriation Advisory Panel of Te Papa and member of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Expert Technical Working Group on Diverse Conceptualisation of Values of Nature and Ecosystems.
\nHer past work includes being Chair of the IUCN Commission on Environmental, Economic & Social Policy (CEESP) 2008-2016, Chair of the Board of the Indigenous Peoples Climate Change Assessment 2010-2017, Director & Senior Lecturer of the M\u0101ori Business Unit, Victoria University of Wellington 2000-2015, Policy Manager, Cultural Heritage & Indigenous Issues Unit, Te Puni Kokiri 1996-2004 and Foreign Policy Convenor, National M\u0101ori Congress 1991-2003.<\/p>\n
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Prof James Renwick<\/h2>\nProfessor of Physical Geography, Victoria University of Wellington<\/h3>\n
James is fascinated by the general circulation of the atmosphere \u2013 how the atmosphere transports energy and momentum and what it does to achieve this. In particular, he is interested in how heating in the tropics is communicated to higher latitudes by the excitation of large-scale waves and how this affects the storm tracks and jet streams. In recent years, James developed an interest in Antarctic climate, especially the growth and decay of Antarctic sea ice. How does the atmospheric circulation (the wind) affect sea ice extent? How this can be tied back to tropical influences?
James is also involved with climate prediction work, from months to centuries, having worked with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change process for several years, and speaking regularly to the media on climate change issues.
With a general background in atmospheric physics, plus mathematics and statistics, James has broad interests most aspects of climate, from the distant past to the near future. This includes paleoclimate reconstruction, synoptic climatology, the climate of New Zealand, climate modelling, climate change, and the use of statistical and matrix techniques to analyse large data sets.<\/p>\n