Former LowCVP director appointed to Climate Change Committee More news

The LowCVP launch director, Professor Jim Skea, has been appointed to the independent Committee on Climate Change which will advise the Government on how to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets included in the Climate Change Bill. The Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, also announced four other nominations to the Committee which will be chaired by Lord Adair Turner.

The Committee's remit will be to advise the Government on how its target to reduce CO2 emissions by at least 60 per cent by 2050, as outlined in the Climate Change Bill, can be achieved, and how domestic effort should be spread across the economy.

The other appointments to the Committee are:

• Brian Hoskins, a dynamical meteorologist and climatologist based at the University of Reading and Imperial College London where he is the Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change.
• Lord Robert May, an ecologist with a particular interest in climate change. He holds a Professorship jointly at Oxford University and Imperial College and is a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford.
• Samuel Fankhauser, a professional economist and climate change specialist. He is currently Managing Director of IDEAcarbon and a visiting fellow in climate change economics at LSE.
• Michael Grubb, Chief Economist at the Carbon Trust and a Senior Research Associate, Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge.

Jim Skea is currently Research Director at the UK Energy Research Centre and has previously been Director at the Policy Studies Institute and the Economic and Social Research Council Global Environmental Change Programme.

Hilary Benn said: 'The Committee will be a fundamental pillar of the way we tackle climate change from now until 2050. The founding members of the Committee are leading experts in their fields, and they will make an vital contribution in our efforts to build a low carbon Britain.'