Ask a Climatologist: A Preface to Paris

In 1979 Patrick Michaels was awarded his PhD in ecological climatology. Since then, he's been a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, program chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the American Meteorological Society and a research professor of environmental sciences at University of Virginia. Michaels was a contributing author and is a reviewer of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. His writing has been published in the major scientific journals, including Climate Research, Climatic Change, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Climate, Nature, and Science, as well as in popular serials worldwide.

After leaving the University of Virginia following three decades of education and research, Michaels has turned to a more general education of the electorate on policy matters related to environmental science. At the Cato Institute, he founded and now directs the Center for the Study of Science, which explores the intersection of science and public policy. In this special event presented by Cato, he answers your questions as the world prepares for December's 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which intends to create a legal framework for governments to regulate carbon emissions and create a $100 billion climate finance fund to redistribute wealth from developed states to least developed countries.