Download Source: Chuck Rice, 785-532-2712, cwrice@k

Source: Chuck Rice, 785-532-2712, [email protected] http://www.kstate.edu/media/mediaguide/bios/ricebio.html
News release prepared by: Jennifer Torline, 785-532-0847, [email protected]
PROFESSOR TO PARTICIPATE IN U.N. CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE
MANHATTAN -- A Kansas State University professor will be in the company of international
agricultural and environmental leaders when he attends the 2010 United Nations Climate Change
Conference in Cancun, Mexico.
Chuck Rice, university distinguished professor of soil microbiology, will participate in several
workshops, lectures and side events held in connection with the Conference of the Parties,
COP16, meetings, which started Nov. 29 and run through Dec. 10. Rice also is attending
Agriculture and Rural Development Day Saturday, Dec. 4, and will help lead a workshop
Tuesday, Dec. 7.
Agriculture Day will involve more than 500 scientists, agricultural producers and policymakers
in discussions surrounding agriculture's impact on climate change and how agriculture can adapt
while still supporting food security.
"In the current negotiations agriculture has kind of been left out of the climate change
discussions," Rice said. "There is a growing awareness, particularly among the agriculture sector,
that climate change is going to challenge our food security globally and that agriculture has a
role in mitigation."
Rice pointed to agricultural concerns in developing countries, where projected changes in
climate will affect areas that are already under stress because of climate or poor soils. Such
countries also have the least opportunity to adapt because of their economic situations.
Rice is participating in the COP16 meetings because of his involvement with a project titled
"The Technical Working Group on Agriculture Greenhouse Gases," or T-AGG.
The project is a partnership between K-State and the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy
Solutions at Duke University, and has received funding from the David and Lucile Packard
Foundation to provide the necessary scientific foundation for creating methods that support
greenhouse gas mitigation in agriculture.
Project leaders will host a booth at Agriculture Day, and they are leading a workshop Dec. 7,
"Terrestrial GHGs and Climate Mitigation: Developments in Science, Economics and Policy."
At the workshop Rice will talk about management of agricultural lands and how international
policies and incentives can encourage agriculture and mitigation strategies. Examples of such
strategies include nitrogen management or conservation tillage, which provides enhanced soil
quality by helping to store additional carbon.
K-State has already established itself as a national leader in research surrounding climate change
and agriculture, but COP16 events give Rice the chance to talk about the university's efforts on
an international basis.
"I've already had some early discussions of how K-State can get involved with some of the
international efforts," Rice said. "I hope to learn what other groups are doing around the world
and where K-State can contribute. I hope there will be some opportunities for further research,
but also for exchange of faculty and students."
Rice was a member of the 2007 Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, and performs research in areas involving agriculture mitigation and soil carbon
sequestration. He is also leading a $20-million National Science Foundation EPSCoR project
that focuses on development, adaption and mitigation strategies for Kansas and for agriculture.