Summary: Nations are making little progress in the diplomacy to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, with the result that concentrations of these gases are trending far off the path needed to avoid dangerous interference in the climate system. Reducing Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels is the only course of action that stabilizes the climate beyond 2100; however, it is clear that it will be difficult to put the planet on the path to stabilization before 2050. While there is cause for optimism that CO2 emission controls can have a large effect after 2050, in the interim policy makers must prepare for twice as much additional warming in 2050 as we have seen thus far. Charles F. Kennel was educated in astronomy and astrophysics at Harvard and Princeton. After a post-doctoral year at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, he joined the UCLA Department of Physics and its Institute for Geophysics and Planetary Physics. There he pursued research and teaching in theoretical space plasma physics and astrophysics, eventually chairing the Physics Department. In 1988, he was on leave as a Fairchild Scholar at CalTech and a visiting professor at Princeton. He served as UCLA’s Executive Vice Chancellor, its chief academic officer, from 1996 to 1998. From 1994 to 1996, Kennel was Associate Administrator at NASA and Director of Mission to Planet Earth, the world’s largest Earth science research program. He became the ninth Director and Dean of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Vice Chancellor of Marine Sciences at the University of California, San Diego, serving from 1998 to 2006. The founding director of the UCSD Environment and Sustainability Initiative, Kennel is Distinguished Professor, emeritus, of Atmospheric Sciences at Scripps, and senior strategist for the UCSD Sustainability Solutions Institute. Kennel has chaired the US National Academy’s Board on Physics and Astronomy and its Committee on Global Change Research. He has served a total of 11 years on the NASA Advisory Council, chairing it from 2000-2005, and was a member of the Presidential (“Augustine”) Commission on human space flight in 2009. Kennel remains on the NASA Advisory Council and chairs the Space Studies Board of the US National Academy of Sciences.
