French Talks: Dealing with Urban Pollution: From KL to Paris

[French Talks] Dealing with Urban Pollution: From KL to Paris
Talk conducted in English 
Free entrance upon RSVP 
Monday 7 October, 8pm @ AFKL  

In a context of rarefying energetic resources, technical innovations and evolutions of individual behaviours have become the key in finding sustainable solutions to urban life. But designing a sustainable city doesn’t amount to mere energetic sufficiency: ensuring a safe environment and reducing social inequalities are vital topics to consider, in which dealing with urban pollution takes a direct part. In this French Talk session, French experts Ms Karine Léger and Mr Olivier Chrétien will address the question of air, noise, water and light pollutions in the urban environment in dialogue with Malaysian academics Prof Andy Chan and Dr Ahmad Ismail. They will discuss the sources and dynamics of these pollutions, the possible solutions and the means needed to achieve them.

Olivier Chrétien

Mr. Chrétien is the Head of Environmental Impact Prevention at The Urban Ecology Agency. The Agency is the department that defines the City of Paris’ environmental strategies. There, Mr Chrétien has developed an expertise on urban pollution, by providing technical support to Paris’ projects and drafting planning documents to make sure the topic of pollution is taken into account in the city actions. He also takes actions to raise public awareness on environmental issues.

Karine Léger

Ms Léger is originally an engineer in agriculture but has been working in the field of air quality for 20 years at AirParif. AirParif is the independent observatory of air quality in the Parisian Region. Its goal is to monitor air quality and to publish fair information to both the French authorities and the general public, as a way to better understand the atmospheric phenomena and their impacts and, in the end, to find innovative ways to improve air quality faster.

Dr. Ahmad Ismail

Ahmad Ismail is a retired professor in wildlife ecology and ecotoxicology at Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Currently he is the president of Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) and active in nature education, conservation and management. Ahmad Ismail is among leading scientists the fields of Ecology, Solid Waste and Ecotoxicology in Malaysia. Since 1987, he has authored and co-authored more than 500 articles published in local and international journals and proceedings.

Professor Andy Chan 

Professor Andy Chan is the current Dean of Science and Engineering in University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus (UNMC). Professor Chan’s area of expertise is on air pollution, especially towards urban climates. During the 2003 SARS episode, he was one of the team leader appointed by WHO to discover the dispersion of mechanisms of the SARS virus in the dense cityscapes in Hong Kong. He is also a world-known expert on recycled carbon fibres and its applications.

Moderator: Yao-Hua Law
Mr Law is a freelance science writer and co-founder of Macaranga.org, a Malaysia-focused environmental portal. Since 2014, Yao-Hua has been writing about nature and humans. His work has been published in Science, Nature, Science News, BBC Earth, Mosaic, and BFM89.9. He won the Asian Scientist Writing Prize 2015, and is a finalist for the Medical Journalists Association (UK) 2018 award for features.

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Brought to you by
Alliance Française de Kuala Lumpur
Embassy of France in Malaysia
Institut Francais

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What is French Talks?
Welcoming French and Malaysian experts, it aims at creating a space of dialogue, and a bridge between the two countries and their cultures. This is particularly timely in this new Malaysia where people are willing to express their views.