Dr. Robert Cox
After Paris: The Communication Challenges of “well below 2ºC” of Climate Warming

Presented by the Harrington School of Communication and Media

The historic Paris Agreement of December 12, 2015 committed 195 nations in the coming decades to hold the increase in global average temperature “to well below 2ºC above pre-industrial levels” and, “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5ºC.” Obstacles to such ambitious goals are enormous—scaling

renewable energy more quickly, mobilizing political will, financing costs, and more. The ability to limit global temperatures also poses serious communication challenges, not the least of which is overcoming the opposition of powerful fossil fuel interests and so-called “climate deniers.”

In “After Paris,” Professor Cox will share some of the recent findings from the new field of “environmental communication” that shed light on ways that students, citizens’ groups, scientists, and others are persuading their campuses and communities to adopt “100% clean energy,” as well as ways broader systems of communication—including market signals—are changing the dynamics of energy policy in the United States.

Tuesday, March 29
5:00– 6:00 pm

Pharmacy 170
URI Kingston Campus
Reception to follow

Dr. Robert Cox is the past President of National Sierra Club, and a Professor Emeritus of Communication Studies, and Curriculum for the Environment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research and teaching focus on environmental and climate communication, and the role of discourse in social change. Dr. Cox serves as an Advisory Editor for Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture and publishes foundational texts in environmental communication.