Please join the U.S. Department of State for an online press briefing featuring Special Envoy for Climate Change Dr. Jonathan Pershing to preview the 22nd Conference of the Parties (COP 22) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to be held in Marrakech, Morocco on November 7-18, 2016. COP22 will be the first such meeting since the historic adoption of the Paris Agreement, which will enter into force on November 4, 2016, as over 55 countries representing over 55 percent of global emissions have now formally joined the Agreement. 

COP22 will focus on implementation of the Paris Agreement and ways to drive ambitious action on climate change. This meeting comes on the heels of two other recent milestones in the international effort to confront the climate challenge: an amendment to the Montreal Protocol to phasedown hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a class of potent greenhouse gases; and the adoption of the first-ever industry-wide market-based measure to set international aviation on a path towards sustainable, carbon-neutral growth. 

These achievements underscore the widespread recognition of the urgency of the problem and are testaments to the continued determination of the global community to tackle climate change. Join us for a conversation with Dr. Pershing before he departs for Marrakech to discuss U.S. climate policy priorities at COP22 and beyond.  

DETAILS:

Speaker: Special Envoy for Climate Change Jonathan Pershing

Topic: COP22

Date: Thursday, November 3, 2016

Time: 9:00 a.m. EDT | 13:00 GMT |15:00 SAST

Language: English

Ground rules: ON THE RECORD

RSVP: Please register here by Thursday, November 3 to participate.

Dial-in Info: You may also call this listen-only phone line to hear the briefing:

USA (Domestic): (877) 336-1829

International: +1-636-651-0002

Access Code: 5806095

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LiveAtState

LiveAtState is the U.S. Department of State’s interactive on-line video platform for engaging with international media on the top foreign policy issues of the day. Invited journalists from around the world submit questions and receive live video answers from U.S. policymakers through this on-the-record “virtual press briefing” format. Past LiveAtState programs may be viewed at www.state.gov/liveatstate

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During the LiveAtState event, please enter your questions into the field under the video screen and click “ASK A QUESTION” to submit, or email Live@state.gov. You may also send questions in advance to the same email address.

Special Envoy for Climate Change – Jonathan Pershing

Term of Appointment: 04/04/2016 to present

Dr. Jonathan Pershing is the Special Envoy for Climate Change at the U.S. Department of State. Previously, he served as the Senior Climate Advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Energy and the Principal Deputy Director of the Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis at the Department of Energy.

Prior to joining DOE, Dr. Pershing was the Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change and the lead negotiator representing the United States at meetings of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Before his appointment to the Obama Administration, he spent six years as the Director of the Climate, Energy and Pollution Program at the World Resources Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank; five years as the Head of the Environment Division at the International Energy Agency in Paris; and for nearly a decade in the 1990s, served the Science Advisor and Deputy Director of the Office of Global Change in the U.S. Department of State.

Dr. Pershing holds a Ph.D. in geology and geophysics, and has also held positions in the private sector as a petroleum and mining geologist, and as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Minnesota and at American University. He has published and lectured widely on climate and energy issues, and has served as a lead author, review editor and contributor for reports of the Nobel-prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.