Professor Kevon Rhiney was recently selected to serve as a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)’s Seventh Assessment Report. Dr. Rhiney will contribute to Chapter 13, titled “Small Islands”, of the Working Group II report. Working Group II assesses impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Rhiney also served as a contributing author for the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5C (SR1.5), one of three special reports published during the Sixth Assessment cycle.
Dr. Rhiney is a broadly trained human-environment geographer whose interdisciplinary research explores the social, economic and environmental justice implications of global environmental change for small islands and developing countries, particularly in the Caribbean. Rhiney’s key research themes include smallholder farmer vulnerability to climate and market forces, adaptation strategies in agriculture, and the socio-political dynamics of post-disaster recovery. Smallholder farmers, considered vital to global food security because they produce a significant portion of the world’s food, cultivate crops or rear livestock on a limited scale, typically managing less than 5 acres of land.