GECHS

The second International Sustainability Conference, ISC, will be held on 21 and 22 August 2008 at the University of Basel, Switzerland. The Central theme of the conference is “Creating values for sustainable development”, and provides a platform for both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary oriented social scientists working in the field of sustainable development. The conference is committed to promoting dialogue, especially among economists and other social scientists. Moreover, the conference aims to act as a meeting point for committed individuals from the political, corporate and academic world as well as for representatives from civil society. Abstracts can be submitted before 16 February 2008. For further details, please refer to the conference website.

An international symposium titled “Coping with global change in marine social-ecological systems” will be held in Rome in July 2008. Principal sponsors of the symposium are GLOBEC, EUR-OCEANS and FAO. Marine socio-ecological systems have marine and human components which are highly inter-connected and interactive. The IPCC report identifies the need to make social-ecological systems more resilient by building “adaptive capacity”. This is an issue on which both natural and social scientists can contribute, for example by identifying the essential characteristics of such systems and relevant approaches to building such capacity. By “global change” the symposium includes climate change, but also resource over-exploitation, competing uses of the marine environment, changing lifestyles, and globalisation of trade and economies. While the focus is on climate and environmental change, how these interact with other global changes are important considerations. The central goals of the symposium are to share experiences across disciplines and to identify key next steps and common elements and approaches that promote resilience of marine social-ecological systems in he face of global changes. This involves:

• Exploring conceptual issues relating to social-ecological responses in marine systems to global changes;
• Analysing case studies of specific examples of social-ecological responses in marine systems to significant environmental changes manifested locally;
• Synthesising the work of natural and social scientists and building comparisons of social-ecological responses in marine ecosystems subjected to major environmental variability;
• Developing innovative approaches to the use of science and knowledge in management, policy and advice;
• Identifying lessons for governance for building resilient social-ecological systems.

For information and registration, see the symposium website.

The new report “World in Transition - Climate Change as a Security Risk” is now available in full text pdf-version. The report is published by the German Advisory Council on Global Change, and summarises the state-of-the-art of science on the subject. It is based on the findings of research into environmental conflicts, the causes of war, and of climate impact research. It appraises past experience but also ventures to cast a glance far into the future in order to assess the likely impacts of climate change on societies, nation-states, regions and the international system. The Summary for policy-makers can be downloaded here.

Jon Barnett and Neil Adger have just published a discussion of the possible links between climate change and violent conflict. For a copy of the article, please contact the authors or visit the Political Geography home page.

Citation
Barnett, J. and Adger, N. 2007. Climate Change, Human Security and Violent Conflict. Political Geography, 26(6): 639-655.

Abstract
Climate change is increasingly been called a ’security’ problem, and there has been speculation that climate change may increase the risk of violent conflict. This paper integrates three disparate but well-founded bodies of research - on the vulnerability of local places and social groups to climate change, on livelihoods and violent conflict, and the role of the State in development and peacemaking, to offer new insights into the relationships between climate change, human security, and violent conflict. It explains that climate change increasingly undermines human security in the present day, and will increasingly do so in the future, by reducing access to, and the quality of, natural resources that are important to sustain livelihoods. Climate change is also likely undermine the capacity of States to provide the opportunities and services that help people to sustain their livelihoods. We argue that in certain circumstances these direct and indirect impacts of climate change on human security may in turn increase the risk of violent conflict. The paper then outlines the broad contours of a research programme to guide empirical investigations into the risks climate change poses to human security and peace.

The 7th International Science Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change (Open Meeting) will be organised by The International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change, IHDP. The conference, which was originally scheduled for 15 - 19 October 2008 in New Delhi, will take place from 26 - 30 April 2009 in Bonn, Germany. With the theme of the 7th Open Meeting, “Social Challenges of Global Change”, IHDP wants to indicate the need to incorporate not only the general discussion about climate change, but also many other environmental changes which happen in our society: resource shortages, the destruction of ecosystem services, and new threats to human health. Four core questions on the social aspects of environmental change will be addressed:

• How do we deal with demographic challenges?
• How do we deal with limitations of resources and ecosystem services?
• How do we maintain social cohesion while increasing (global) equity?
• How do we adapt institutions to address global change?

GECHS will contribute with numerous sessions and paper presentations in the conference. For more information, please see the conference website.