Karen Potter, director of Sustainability Hub and ideaXme sustainability ambassador interviews Paula Owen, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Green Gumption and Director and Chief Fun Officer at Eco Action Games.
Karen Potter comments:
On 1 May 2019, the UK Government declared a climate emergency. It recognised that climate change was the biggest threat facing us and called for the UK to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
This Parliamentary declaration lacked the urgency demanded by climate change campaigners, local authorities and others who are calling for net-zero emissions by 2025 and 2030. Their demands for faster action are supported by the scientific evidence that Greta Thunberg demands that politicians listen to.
In 2018, an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report found that we have a 12-year window to tackle climate change. Without urgent action, the levels of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere could reach a tipping point from which nature would not be able to recover.
While the parliamentary declaration may lack urgency, it does show broad cross-party support in the House of Commons for political action to tackle the climate emergency.
Scientists and school students have been at the forefront of maintaining political momentum and demanding political action to tackle climate change while we still have a chance.
Politicians, business and NGOs in the UK must develop climate change policies that will help turn the big picture ambitions into practical steps to ramp up the UK’s climate emission reductions to keep pace with what science demands.
Paula’s Science Communications Expertise To Communicate Necessity To Act Now To Reduce Climate Change
Paula Owen is a climate change scientist. She is a UK-based specialist in energy, carbon and climate change with experience in building and delivering advisory and training services to the public and private sector.
Owen is author of many publications explaining the link between energy, carbon and climate change. She is a creator of games to aid behaviour change. Moreover, Paula became a GLA/London SDC London Leader in the summer of 2012.
She is an accomplished media spokesperson with 10 years’ experience and is a regular on Radio 4’s ‘You & Yours’.
Paula’s Career in Tackling Climate Change and in Climate Change Communications
Paula set up her own company in 2010 to work with government departments, charities, national and international NGOs and businesses to help them improve their environmental performances and train staff. Her clients include DECC, Defra, OFGEM, Big Lottery Fund, Tate Galleries, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Ernst & Young (now EY); EU Commission, EU.BAC, CLASP, Energy UK and Energy Saving Trust.
Eco Action Games, an education environmental games company, was set up in 2013. It concentrates on the invention and production of simple, social games with environmental messaging that enhances societal awareness of environmental issues and promotes personal action. Paula published her book How Gamification Can Help Your Business Engage in Sustainability in 2013, which is available from Do Sustainability publishers.
Paula’s charity work includes acting as a member of the board of Trustees for charity 10:10, now called Possible.
In this interview Paula shares:
How she came to study climate change chemistry and information science and why. Whom she would like to meet on her death bed. Using her expertise to make climate change facts “real” for the general public. Who has influenced her most in moving both her career and human story forward and how she came to work with this person. What makes her chief influencer special. She will discuss how Covid-19 will change the aviation industry, possibly to make it more sustainable and global air emissions, both at the ground source level and higher carbon dioxide emission (planetary).
Impact of Covid-19 on Climate Change
She will talk about how she is interested to see the comparison between the reduction in deaths due to decreased emissions (people not travelling) and deaths due to Covid-19, post Covid-19.
Karen Potter is a passionate project development specialist with extensive experience in designing and delivering new initiatives to promote sustainability, social responsibility, smart energy, green economy and clean tech investment. She is highly experienced in government, NGO and public sector communications, building and managing senior stakeholder relations and media engagement.
Interview credits: Karen Potter, ideaXme sustainability ambassador.
This interview is available in audio format across 11 further platforms. Here www.radioideaxme.com, iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify and more.
If you liked this article, be sure to check out our article on using the power of art and science to combat climate change!
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