--- title: "Professor Corinne Le Quéré CBE to deliver the Rationalist Press Lecture 2026" date: "2026-09-30T12:09:35+01:00" modified: "2026-09-30T12:09:38+01:00" url: "https://humanists.uk/2026/09/30/professor-corinne-le-quere-cbe-to-deliver-the-rationalist-press-lecture-2026/" post_id: 199077 categories: ["News"] --- # Professor Corinne Le Quéré CBE to deliver the Rationalist Press Lecture 2026 ![](https://i0.wp.com/humanists.uk/wp-content/uploads/20260929-173952-2026-09-27-v2-Rationalist-Press-Lecture-Wildfires-1920x1080-1.jpg?resize=1200%2C675&ssl=1)Humanists UK announced today that world-renowned climate scientist [Professor Corinne Le Quéré CBE will deliver the Rationalist Press Lecture 2026](http://humanists.uk/events/rationalistpress2026). Taking place on Tuesday 1 December 2026 at Conway Hall in London and livestreamed online, the lecture will see Professor Le Quéré explore the dangerous mismatch between short-term political cycles and the long-term reality of climate change, in ***Five-Year Terms, Fifty-Year Problems: climate, carbon, and how a democracy can think in decades***. The evening will be chaired by Humanists UK President Janet Ellis MBE. **Tickets for the evening are available to book now at** [**humanists.uk/events/rationalistpress2026**](http://humanists.uk/events/rationalistpress2026)**.** The UK has recently come through its hottest summer since records began in 1884, suffering three months of drought, five heat waves, and the worst wildfires on record. Across Europe, fires drove hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in France and Spain, while the Met Office warns that a growing El Niño in the Pacific is likely to make 2027 the hottest year ever measured. Meanwhile, the cross-party political consensus in Westminster is fraying. The Climate Change Act, passed in 2008 with only five dissenting MPs and later strengthened to commit the UK to net zero by 2050, has transitioned from settled law to a target for those promising to tear it up. These intersecting crises highlight what happens when a problem measured in centuries meets a political system that resets every five years. Professor Le Quéré is uniquely positioned to address this structural mismatch. For 13 years, she led the Global Carbon Budget, tracking global emissions, ecological absorption, and remaining carbon limits. She knows what happens when scientific arithmetic reaches a minister’s desk, having served as the founding Chair of France’s High Council on Climate, and having spent a decade on the UK Climate Change Committee putting independent evidence in front of governments of every stripe. **In the Rationalist Press Lecture 2026**, Professor Le Quéré will set out exactly where the science now stands, explain what a carbon budget actually is, and demonstrate why a date set in law is not the same as a concrete plan. She will then address the harder questions of whether a parliament can legitimately bind its successors for decades, and how we can sustain the necessary votes to secure a safe future for our planet – and all of us who live on it. **Humanists UK Chief Executive Andrew Copson said:** ---------------------------------------------------- > ‘As the climate emergency accelerates, our political responses must be grounded in scientific evidence, long-term thinking, and reason, not buffeted by short-term populism. We are exceptionally proud to welcome Professor Le Quéré to deliver this year’s Rationalist Press Lecture. She will take on one of the hardest questions any democracy faces: whether a government elected for five years has the right to make promises that fall due decades later, and how those promises can be kept. Anyone who cares about the future of our planet should hear her answer.’ #### Notes **About Professor Corinne Le Quéré CBE** ---------------------------------------- Professor Corinne Le Quéré CBE FRS is Royal Society Research Professor of Climate Change Science at the University of East Anglia, where her research examines how the climate and the carbon cycle shape each other, and how the oceans absorb the carbon we emit. In 2004 she instigated the Global Carbon Budget, the annual international effort to track global emissions and carbon sinks, and led its update for 13 years. She directed the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research from 2011 to 2018, was founding Chair of the French High Council on Climate, and served on the UK Climate Change Committee from 2016 to 2026. She was a lead author of two assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007, and an author of a third. Her awards include the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Prince Albert I Medal, and the Vernadsky Medal of the European Geosciences Union. She was made a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour in 2019 and appointed CBE the same year for services to climate change science. **About Janet Ellis MBE** ------------------------- Janet Ellis MBE is a broadcaster, actor, writer, and the President of Humanists UK. A longstanding advocate of humanism, she became a patron of Humanists UK in 2014 for her exploration of the human condition through the arts, and was awarded an MBE in 2016 for services to charity and the theatre. **About the Rationalist Press Lecture** --------------------------------------- The Rationalist Press Lecture takes on any question worth asking – in science, philosophy, culture, or the world around us – and examines it in the light of reason and the humanist commitment to living well. The Rationalist Press Lecture medal is awarded each year to someone who has made a significant contribution in one of those fields, and the lecture is chaired by the President of Humanists UK. The series is the successor to the Voltaire Lecture, which ran from 1968 to 2025. Past speakers include Michael Foot, Sir Hermann Bondi, Baroness Barbara Wootton, Sir Ludovic Kennedy, Professor Brian Cox, Bonya Ahmed, Bettany Hughes, Professor Nichola Raihani, Dr Caroline Dodds Pennock, Professor Steven Pinker, and Professor Anil Seth. For further comment or information, media should contact Humanists UK Head of Press and Campaign Communications Nathan Stilwell at or phone 0203 675 0959 (media only). Humanists UK is the national charity working on behalf of non-religious people. Powered by over 150,000 members and supporters, we advance free thinking and promote humanism to create a tolerant society where rational thinking and kindness prevail. We provide ceremonies, pastoral care, education, and support services benefitting over a million people every year and our campaigns advance humanist thinking on ethical issues, human rights, and equal treatment for all. [![Event image: Five-Year Terms, Fifty-Year Problems: climate, carbon, and how a democracy can think in decades | Corinne Le Quéré CBE, chaired by Janet Ellis MBE | The Rationalist Press Lecture 2026](https://cdn.humanists.uk/wp-content/uploads/20260929-173952-2026-09-27-v2-Rationalist-Press-Lecture-Wildfires-1920x1080-1.jpg?width=800)](https://humanists.uk/events/rationalistpress2026/)##### [Five-Year Terms, Fifty-Year Problems: climate, carbon, and how a democracy can think in decades | Corinne Le Quéré CBE, chaired by Janet Ellis MBE | The Rationalist Press Lecture 2026](https://humanists.uk/events/rationalistpress2026/) Hybrid **1 December 2026, 19:30** *Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL* Can a democracy think in decades? Climate scientist Professor Corinne Le Quéré CBE FRS will deliver the Rationalist Press Lecture 2026 [More info](https://humanists.uk/events/rationalistpress2026/ "More info")[Register now](https://humanists.uk/civicrm/event/register/?id=3261&reset=1 "Register Now")