At 8 PM Eastern Time on Sunday, March 30, 2014, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II released its Summary for Policymakers at the end of a week-long meeting in Yokohama, Japan. This is the second of the three working groups that together produced the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5). For more information, click here to read our backgrounder on the IPCC.

On Sunday, March 30, 2014 at 12 PM Eastern Time, the Science Media Centre of Canada held a webinar to answer questions about the report’s findings, such as:

  • What will the impacts of climate change be for Canada, and how will they differ between urban and rural environments?

  • How will climate change affect our access to fresh water and our ability to grow crops?

  • What about the Arctic, where climate change is happening at a faster rate? How are Arctic peoples coping?

Speakers:

Paul Kovacs, Executive Director, Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction. Kovacs is an expert on the impact of extreme events on cities and infrastructure, and will give an overview of the key findings of the report as they relate to Canada. He is a lead author of Chapter 26 (North America) of the IPCC WG II report

Graham Cogley, Professor of Geography, Trent University. Cogley is an expert in glaciers and will discuss the impacts of climate change on our freshwater supply, including access to drinking water and risk of floods. He is a lead author of Chapter 3 (Freshwater Resources) of the IPCC WG II report.

John Stone, Adjunct Professor, Carleton University. Stone has directed research programs on climate and atmospheric sciences as well as developed policy on a range of environmental issues, and will discuss the impact of climate change in Canada’s Arctic. He is a lead author of Chapter 28 (Polar Regions) of the IPCC WG II report.

You can listen to the audio below.