Listen
Stephanie Sonnabend
April 14, 2021
Sudeb Dalai (follow-up)
February 26, 2021
Amrita Saigal and Arun Saigal
January 26, 2021
Sun Yoo
November 25, 2020-
COP26 Explained: High Hopes, Hard Truths & Future Pathways
Since the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came into force in 1994, parties to the UNFCCC have met annually in a Conference of Parties (COP) beginning with the Berlin Mandate (1995) to further negotiate a legal protocol, which resulted in the Kyoto Protocol at COP3 (1997). Fast forward to 2009, nations had high expectations when over 180 heads of governments and heads of states met at Copenhagen for COP15. High expectations resulted in failure to achieve a new legal instrument. Through much hard talk and tough negotiations through the intervening annual COPs, it was not until COP21 that nations again completed a new legal instrument – the Paris Agreement of 2015.
Each year since 2015, nations have been negotiating the implementation details of the Paris Agreement, including the role of each nation’s nationally determined contributions and whether such voluntary contributions are conditioned on climate finance and technology assistance from wealthier nations and the provisions of cooperative approaches between nations in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
In this fireside chat, we will be joined by two climate change experts and veteran observers of the climate policy landscape who will give us their perspectives of what has been accomplished at COP26 in Glasgow and what these global policy develop-ments mean towards advances in climate actions. -
Negative Emissions: What Are They and Will They Be Enough?
Recent climate modeling tells us that just eliminating fossil fuel emissions from the major sources will not be enough to meet our climate targets. We will have to actively clean up the atmosphere, both to make up for the emissions we can’t stop in time (fertilizer, airplanes, etc.) and to clean up the mess we are continuing to make. The scale is stunning – 10 billion tons a year by 2050. This amount is twice the weight of all the oil we extract in one year today. Can we develop an industry to remove carbon by 2050 that is twice the size of today’s oil industry? Roger will argue that we can.
Negative emissions technologies are being developed to address this need, and appear to be a major business opportunity. Major approaches include enhancing natural sinks like soil and forests; using biomass to accumulate carbon that is permanently stored; and building machines that remove CO2 by chemical means. In this talk, Roger will discuss the major ways we can remove CO2, and what we have learned about their costs and limitations. -
Thresholds of Catastrophe in Earth's Carbon System
Analyzing our Geologic Past to Inform the Present
Mysterious and abrupt changes in the ocean's store of carbon have occurred intermittently throughout Earth's history. Each of these disruptions coincides with significant climate change. Mass extinctions are always accompanied by such events.
What causes these disruptions? Professor Rothman suggests that an influx of carbon dioxide that exceeds a critical rate instigates non-linear responses in Earth's carbon cycle. His analysis of the geologic record supports this hypothesis and he has created a model of an excitable carbon cycle that suggests how it works. Both show how to rescale the slow critical rates of the geologic past to inform our understanding of long-term risks posed by the fast pace of modern environmental change. -
The Latest in Cell Therapy: Healing vs. Hype
Cell therapy, an idea that originated in the 19 th century, has nonetheless caught the world by a whirlwind of hope for treating cancers and fighting some of the toughest humankind diseases on Earth. Despite billions of dollars invested in its research, however, its translational outcomes have remained elusive. Only a handful of therapeutics have been approved by regulatory agencies, mostly in stem cell therapy. Large-scale manufacturing of cell therapy products proves to be challenging due to the intricacies of the manufacturing process. In addition, many unapproved products in the market remain in legal and moral quagmire.
The purpose of this panel is to bring to you a realistic check-in on the latest progress of cell therapy and assess its future directions. We are honored to have Eddie Eltoukhy (’13 PhD) from Senti Bio and Pear VC and Shannon Dahl (SB ’99), a veteran company builder in cell therapy who has been named the 2018 PharmaVOICE 100 list of the most transformational, influential, and inspirational leaders in the global healthcare and life sciences industry.
We are aiming for a 40-50min panel discussion, followed by a 10-20 min breakout room networking session.
