Prof Jon Barnett is a political geographer who investigates the impacts of and responses to climate change on social systems, with a focus on risks to human insecurity, hunger, violent conflict and water stress. He has done extensive field-work in the South Pacific, China and East Timor. Jon is convenor of the Australian national research network on the social, economic and institutional dimensions of climate change, which is part of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility and is a Lead Author for the forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is Executive Editor of the adaptation domain of Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change.