Presented by: HFP and The Royal Society
Date and time: 7th June 2010,The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG.

BBC television and radio as well as the high-profile on-line humanitarian news network, Reuters AlertNet, gave global news coverage to an important debate on the value of climate science to humanitarian policy-makers.

The UN Assistant Secretary-General, Margareta Wahlström was guest speaker at a discussion co-hosted by the HFP at the Royal Society in London, to explore how climate science could help mitigate future humanitarian threats.

She told an audience of scientists and policy-makers that the humanitarian sector as we know it, is reaching its end.
Ms Wahlström said the diversity and scale of 21^st century risks were so great that humanitarianism would have to re-constitute itself to adapt to future challenges.

She acknowledged the work of the HFP in leading an exchange initiative which brought together scientists and humanitarians in a safe space to have the freedom to develop a two-way dialogue to achieve the integration she said was so important.
Focussing on climate science she said, “We are in an era of climate change.  In the post war era humanitarian action was an important ingredient but today we have fragmentation and we need integration.  Humanitarian policy-makers don’t have yet a grasp of the science consequences and scientists have to be clear on how their science can be applied.”
The leading Oxford University climate scientist, Professor Tim Palmer, talked about the uncertainty of climate science but said there was a range of probabilities and emphasised that uncertainty did not justify taking no action.
Ms Wahlström warned against “institutional inertia” but said that humanitarians were good at taking decisions in an uncertain world. 
Margareta Wahlström was later interviewed on national radio on the subject of collaboration between humanitarian policy-makers and scientists in order to mitigate the effects of another Haiti. A recording of the full broadcast on BBC Five Live Breakfast when Ms Wahlström was interviewed by the presenter, Shelagh Fogarty, is available to download below.

The Director of the HFP, Dr. Randolph Kent, gave a television interview on the issue of the need for humanitarians and scientists to engage in on-going two-way dialogue – rather than piecemeal conversations – to BBC World TV.  The broadcast is broadcast internationally but not beamed to the UK.  A recording of the interviewed can be viewed by clicking here.

Meanwhile, the journalist, Megan Rowling has posted this blog on Reuters AlertNet:

Copenhagen flop opens door to practical action on climate change - UN disaster reduction chief, please click here for the story.