Monash Sustainability Institute
The cross-disciplinary Monash Sustainability Institute is headed up by Professor Dave Griggs, who before coming to Monash was Director of the Hadley Centre on Climate Change and spent five years as head of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Science Working Group Secretariat which tested the science around the "inconvenient truth" of climate change.
As a review editor on the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC, Professor Griggs was part of the publication of the largest and most detailed summary of the climate change situation ever undertaken, involving hundreds of authors from dozens of countries.
The report made two statements in its summary that have put urgency into the global response to climate change:
- Warming of the climate system is unequivocal;
- Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.
"Now that the evidence is clear we all have to step up to address the challenges presented by global warming and this is where I believe the cross-disciplinary MSI can play a major role," Professor Griggs said.
Professor Griggs and other IPCC lead authors were rewarded with the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their work on climate change, along with the US environment campaigner Al Gore.
The Institute promotes research, education and action. Former Victorian Deputy Premier and Environment Minister John Thwaites has been appointed to represent the institute in government and business circles.
Behind the scene Monash researchers, among many MSI projects, are working on an AusAid funded program in Central Kalimantan where the Orangutan and other species are threatened by forest clearing; a project studying transport disadvantage and the disproportionate impact of climate change adaption on low income groups; and a strategy for climate change adaption in Westernport, where relatively small sea level rises could have a major impact on communities.
