Andrew Weaver

Weaver was born in Victoria, British Columbia, and graduated from Oak Bay High School in 1979.

He received a BSc in mathematics and physics from the University of Victoria in 1983, a Certificate of Advanced Study in mathematics (Master of Advanced Study) from the University of Cambridge in 1984, and a PhD in applied mathematics from the University of British Columbia in 1987.

After finishing his PhD, Weaver worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the School of Mathematics at the University of New South Wales in Australia in 1988, and in the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1989.

Prior to joining the University of Victoria in 1992, he spent three years as an assistant professor in the department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at McGill University.

Weaver is a professor and, prior to his election to the BC Legislature, was the Canada Research Chair in climate modelling and analysis in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria, where he has worked for 25 years.

Over the years he has received numerous awards including the NSERC–EWR Steacie Memorial Fellowship in 1997, the Killam Research Fellowship and a CIAR Young Explorers award as one of the top 20 scientists in Canada under the age of 40 in 2002, the CMOS President's Prize in 2007.

From 2003 to 2004, he was president of the Victoria Confederation of Parent Advisory Councils (VCPAC).

In 2004–2005 he was president of the University of Victoria Faculty Association and served as their chief negotiator in the 2003 and 2006 collective bargaining.

Weaver has been engaged in public outreach and science communication.

He sat on the CRD Roundtable on the Environment, and has delivered numerous public and school presentations and hosted many school field trips to his university laboratory over his career.

He continues to lead the development of the Vancouver Island School Based weather station project.

Weaver has authored or coauthored over 200 peer-reviewed papers in climate, meteorology, oceanography, earth science, policy, education and anthropology journals.

He was a lead author in the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th scientific assessments.

He was the chief editor of the Journal of Climate from 2005 to 2009.

Weaver is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, the American Geophysical Union, the American Meteorological Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

He was a lead author in the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—the group that, with Al Gore, won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

He also received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2008 and the Royal Society of Canada Miroslaw Romanowski Medal and the A.G. Huntsman Award for Excellence in Marine Science in 2011.

In 2008 he was appointed to the Order of British Columbia and in 2013 he was awarded a Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal.

He gave the 2010 Elizabeth R. Laird Lecture at the Memorial University of Newfoundland.

His book, Keeping our Cool: Canada in a Warming World was published by Viking Canada in September 2008 (ISBN 978-0-670-06800-5).

His second book, Generation Us: The Challenge of Global Warming was published by Raven Books in 2011 (ISBN 978-1-55469-804-2).

Weaver joined the British Columbia Green Party in October 2012 as the party's deputy leader and candidate for the riding of Oak Bay-Gordon Head.

Andrew John Weaver is a Canadian scientist and politician who represented the riding of Oak Bay-Gordon Head from 2013 to 2020 in the British Columbia Legislative Assembly.

He was elected in the 2013 provincial election as the first Green Party MLA in British Columbia's history.

Since his running for office, Weaver has been a strong supporter of the development of the clean technology industry and a firm critic of the LNG Canada project.

Weaver calls the LNG plan a "pipe-dream", asserting that Liberal government promises of a $1 trillion boost to the provincial GDP, a $100 billion prosperity fund, and the elimination of the provincial debt and sales tax are unsubstantiated and irresponsible.

Weaver has also been involved in several local issues, most recently calling for a reconsideration of the Capital Regional District's sewage treatment plan in 2013.

In August 2013, Weaver chose not to take on leadership of the BC Green Party stating: "I have an ambitious agenda for my term as MLA and achieving this requires focus and hard work. I consider it in the best interests of my constituents, the party and the province if, for now, I focus on my role as MLA and support a new interim leader who can concentrate on building the party."

In 2014, Weaver received an Honorary DSc from McMaster University.

Weaver was the leader of the Green Party of British Columbia from 2015 to 2020.

On 24 November 2015 Weaver announced his bid to run for leader of the British Columbia Green Party.

He was acclaimed to this position on 9 December 2015.

He was the Lansdowne Professor until 2017.

Weaver has chaired or served as a member of numerous local, national and international committees.

However, Weaver also stated that if he decided to re-run in the 2017 provincial election and was still the only elected BC Green Party MLA, he would then seek leadership of the party.

In the 2017 election, Weaver was reelected and the BC Green Party increased their share of the popular vote to 16.8% from 8.13%.

Weaver was joined by BC Green MLAs Sonia Furstenau and Adam Olsen, forming the first BC Green Caucus in the province's history.

The election ended in a minority government, with the Greens holding the balance of power.

Weaver led the subsequent negotiations with the BC Liberal Party and BC NDP.

After leaving the Green caucus in January 2020, he continued to sit as an independent member but did not run for reelection in the 2020 BC election.