Sir David King, the Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment at the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Oxford, will open the inaugural meeting of the South East Africa Climate Consortium (SEACC) at a lecture on Tuesday 9 March in the Eden Grove Red lecture theatre at Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网.
The SEACC, whose founding members include Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网, 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Fort Hare, the Sustainable Seas Trust and the Wilderness Foundation, will strive to promote capacity building, research, knowledge dissemination and understanding to develop practical policies and steps towards adaptation and mitigation.
The Consortium will also aim to use its strength in science, technology, communication and education to reach the people of South Africa in their efforts to achieve sustainable management of the climate.
Sir David, who was born in South Africa in 1939, became the Brunner Professor of Physical Chemistry at the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Liverpool in 1974, after an early career spent at the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of the Witwatersrand, Imperial College and the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of East Anglia.
He was appointed Professor of physical chemistry at the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Cambridge in 1988, after which he became Master of Downing College and head of the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 Chemistry Department.
He was the UK Government’s Chief Scientific Advisor and head of the government office of Science from 2000 until 2007. In that time he raised the profile of the need for governments to act on climate change and was instrumental in creating the new ?1 billion Energy Technologies Institute.
Sir David has published over 450 papers on his research in chemical physics and on science and policy, and has received numerous prizes, fellowships and honorary degrees. He still serves as Director of Research in the department of Chemistry at the 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 of Cambridge, and is currently President of the British Science Association, and president of the Collgio Carlo Alberto in Turin and is Senior Science advisor to UBS.
Further, he also acts as Science advisor to President Kagame of Rwanda and advisor to EU Commissioners on Science capacity building in Africa.
The SEACC launch at Rhodes will be followed by a conference focusing on SEACC’s contribution to a sustainable future to be held 10 March at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网, Port Elizabeth.
The launch will conclude on 11 March with a celebration at the BoE Building at V&A Waterfront hosted by Sustainable Seas Trust.