The Whitehall Group are delighted to be welcoming Professor Richard Betts MBE, Head of Climate Impacts Research, Met Office Hadley Centre and University of Exeter as guest speaker during lunch on Thursday, 23rd February 2023. During lunch Professor Betts will be discussing “The climate crisis and the urgency of damage limitation”.
Richard is Head of Climate Impacts Research in the Met Office Hadley Centre and a Professor at the University of Exeter. He is currently leading the writing of the Technical Report for the UK’s 3rd Climate Change Risk Assessment.
Areas of expertise
- Large-scale modelling of ecosystem-hydrology-climate interactions
- Carbon cycle
- Land use change
- Climate impacts projections and risk assessment
Publications: https://library.metoffice.gov.uk/Portal/Default/en-GB/Search/AdvancedSearch?userSearchId=35
Current activities
Richard holds a joint position at the Met Office and University of Exeter. Under his Exeter role he is the project director for the writing of the Technical Report for the UK’s 3rd national Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3), with his Met Office role ensuring close collaboration with expert colleagues who produced the UKCP18 climate projections.
Richard leads research on impacts, trade-offs and co-benefits of mitigation in the Hadley Centre Climate Programme, and leads the research on climate impacts and disaster risk reduction in the Climate Science for Service Partnership Brazil (CSSP Brazil).
He is current serving as a Lead Author in the preparation of the 6th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), He is working on the chapter on Water in the Working Group 2 volume (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability).
Richard is a Contributing Author with the Science Panel for the Amazon, working on the chapter on the potential Amazon forest tipping point. He is chair of the Royal Meteorological Society’s Climate Science Special Interest Group
To find out more about the Whitehall Group events or if you are interested in membership to the Whitehall Group please contact the Group Secretary, Fiona Jones by emailing fionajones.wg@culandsoc.com
The Whitehall Group is a high level policy discussion and thought leadership group whose members are mainly Cambridge alumni or those connected with the University of Cambridge. The Whitehall Group, a forum of the Cambridge University Land Society (CULS) hosts a series of lunches and dinners for approximately 15 – 20 attendees under the Chatham House Rules. The forum allows members and their guests to meet and discuss matters that are outside of their regular business / professional lives. We count amongst our members and supporters current and former Ministers, Diplomats and senior business executives. Past speakers have included Ambassadors, Ministers, Commissioners and leading academics and journalists. Speakers are invited to talk to the group on a current subject of political or economic interest.
