GECHS » Conferences and Workshops

Call for papers: Climate Change, Social Stress and Violent Conflict

Kirsten Ulsrud — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:45:20 +0000

The international conference Climate Change, Social Stress and Violent Conflict, will be organized at the Klima Campus at Hamburg University, November 19-20, 2009. The workshop aims to bring together national and international experts to explore and discuss main elements of the current “state of the art” in terms of knowledge on security implications and conflict potential of climate change. Furthermore participants will explore research needs, both with respect to problem analysis and methodologies. Besides providing a snapshot of the current debate, it aims at building connections among individuals and research groups that can provide a basis for establishing an international network on climate security and conflict.

These are some of the guiding questions for the conference:

What are the major causal chains between climate change and violent conflict, and what is the empirical basis for these linkages, revisiting previous assessments of environmental conflict?

Which approaches, methods and theories are helpful for the analysis of the links between climate change, social stress and violent conflict?

Is it adequate to call climate change a threat to national or international security?

Are broader security conceptions (such as environmental or human security) useful for evaluating the violence risks of climate change?

What is the likelihood, potential damage and resulting risk for violent conflict of water and food scarcity, mass migrations and natural disasters induced by climate change?

Deadline for submission of abstracts is August 31, 2009. Send abstracts of maximum one page to: ClimateSecurity@uni-hamburg.de (Subject line: Abstract Climate Conflict Conference). The conference organizer is KlimaCampus, Universität Hamburg.

Call for papers on climate change and security

Kirsten Ulsrud — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:25:01 +0000

A conference on ‘Climate change and security’ is being organized for the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, on the occasion of its 250th anniversary. The conference will take place 21–24 June 2010 in Trondheim, Norway. The purpose of this conference is to examine the broad security implications of climate change. For the last few years, the debate about climate change has increasingly focused on the social implications, including the implications for security and peace. But as yet there is little academic work in this area. While the science of climate change is well established on the basis of peer-reviewed publications, the literature on the security implications remains more speculative. We aim to move this field forward with the joint efforts of scholars from multiple fields.

Over four days, morning plenary sessions will feature keynote addresses by established names in the field. The afternoon sessions will consist of workshops with research papers selected on the basis of an open call. Following the conference, we hope to gather some of the best papers in a special issue of a relevant journal or an edited volume with an academic publisher. More information is published at the conference webpage. You can also go directly to the Call for papers . The Call ends on 31 August 2009.

GECHS sessions at the Open Meeting in Bonn, 26-30 April 2009

Kirsten Ulsrud — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:57:16 +0000

GECHS will organize 12 sessions with more than 60 paper presentations in the Open Meeting in Bonn 26-30 April 2009. The meeting will take place at the former German Parliament premises on the United Nations Campus.

This 7th Open Meeting, “Social Challenges of Global Change”, addresses the need to incorporate not only the social aspects of climate change, but also the social aspects of many other environmental changes which happen in our society, such as resource shortages, the destruction of ecosystem services, and new threats to human health.

The GECHS sessions cover important aspects of the social challenges of global change, including how to approach the threats to human security, emerging new vulnerabilities in megacities and its implications for human security, interactions between globalization and global environmental change, limits and barriers to climate adaptation, climate change and conflicts, sustainable adaptation, environmental management and human security for disaster resilient communities, sustainability and adaptive capacity, and reducing water insecurity through stakeholder participation.

An overview over these sessions is presented below. The full program for the conference is available at the Open Meeting website.

International Human Dimension Workshop on “Sustainable Adaptation to Climate Change”

iss — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:33:08 +0000

The Global Environmental Change and Human Security (GECHS) project organized an International Human Dimensions Workshop (IHDW) on “Sustainable Adaptation to Climate Change” October 11-16, 2009, New Delhi, India. A total of 17 researchers and practitioners from around the world attended and contributed to this seminar. The participation of 5 young researchers from Africa was funded from START/PACOM African Global Change Research Grants. The training seminar focused on the concept of sustainable adaptation to climate change as a means of enhancing human security. In particular, the relationship between adaptation and development was explored, including how poverty reduction strategies can have either positive or negative influences on vulnerability to climate change. The role of social and technological innovations for development was also addressed in the seminar, especially the role of renewable energy technologies in contribution to increased adaptive capacity and sustainable adaptation. The presentations given during the IHDW are listed below:

Open meeting – new venue and second call for papers

Kirsten Ulsrud — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 08:42:42 +0000

The 7th International Science Conference (Open Meeting), originally planned for 15-19 October 2008 in New Delhi, will now be relocated to Bonn, Germany, and will take place from 26-30 April 2009 at the former German Parliament premises on the United Nations Campus. All panel, paper and poster acceptances for the Open Meeting remain valid. GECHS will contribute with numerous sessions and paper presentations in the conference. A second call for papers is now open, and will close 31 October 2008. This call is particularly addressed toward new applicants, who are invited to submit their papers and posters. Those who have already submitted to the first call are also invited to submit one more paper or poster for consideration. 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?

For more details on specific themes identified for the second call for papers, see the conference website. Deadline for abstract submission in the second call is the 31 October 2009.

Call for abstracts: Climate change: Equity between nations and regions

Kirsten Ulsrud — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:43:58 +0000

In the Copenhagen Science Congress on Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions, a major session will be organized by J. Timmons Roberts from the College of William and Mary, USA, and Coleen Vogel from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

Two types of contributions are sought for two sub-sessions: The first sub-session welcomes broad characterizations of the inequities involved in adapting to climate change, such as how vulnerability and adaptation interact with national poverty, regional imbalances in adaptive capacity, adaptation in the context of national colonial histories, and the ethics of imposing the adaptation burden in an already unequal world. This sub-session will ideally also reflect upon opportunities and barriers that might either enhance or frustrate sustainable development and resilience building efforts. The second sub-session invites contributions that discuss proposals and practice for funding climate adaptation. Several different models have been proposed to include equity issues in their frameworks for who should pay for and who should receive climate aid, including a nation’s emissions responsibility and capability to pay. This scientific conference in March will lead up to the COP-15 in Copenhagen in late 2009, and will provide a synthesis of existing and emerging scientific knowledge relevant for designing and implementing mitigation and adaptation strategies in response to climate change.

Abstracts can only be submitted online, no later than 1 September 2008.

For more information, see the conference website.

Symposium: Cultural dimensions of climate change

Kirsten Ulsrud — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 14:54:49 +0000

The Symposium on “Cultural Dimensions of Climate Change” is part of the XVI International Conference of the Society for Human Ecology, “Integrative Thinking forComplex Futures: Creating Resilience in Human-Nature Systems.” The conference will take place 10 – 13 September 2008, at Huxley College of the Environment, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington State, USA.

The basic assumption underpinning this symposium is that all personal and societal change happens within frameworks of interpretation, valuation and choice by subjects who see themselves as actual or potential agents. As such, the symposium seeks to explore the cultural dimensions of individual and social factors that may lead to mitigation to and adaptation to climate change. Reflection on schemas of interpretation and valuation that enable or constrain our capacities for action gain a particularly important role when we consider our ethical responsibilities toward present and future generations of fellow human and non-human inhabitants of this planet.

For further information on the Symposium see the conference website.

Conference session: Culture, Values, World Perspectives and Climate Change

Kirsten Ulsrud — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:14:14 +0000

GECHS chair Karen O’Brien at the University of Oslo and Thomas Heyd at the University of Victoria are organizing a session for the upcoming Copenhagen science congress on Climate Change: Global Risks, Challenges and Decisions, which will be held from 10-12 March 2009. The session falls under the broader theme of Mobilising the Populace: Human Dimensions of Climate Change. The session welcomes papers and posters that address climate change from the perspectives of individual and societal values, cultures, and worldviews. A wide range of issues, including psychological, ethical, and anthropological perspectives on climate change, are critical to understanding the behavioral and systemic responses that can potentially contribute to both mitigation and adaptation. The session will identify contributions from the social sciences and the humanities that enhance understanding of the factors that influence vulnerability and resilience, and that broaden discussions and debates about global risks, challenges, and decisions related to climate change. The scientific conference in March will lead up to the COP-15 in Copenhagen in late 2009, and the findings will be supplementary to the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Deadline for submission of abstracts is the 1 September 2008, and guidelines for submission of abstracts are available on the conference website.

Call for papers: Climate change in South Asia: Governance, equity and social justice

Kirsten Ulsrud — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:38:56 +0000

A conference on climate change in South Asia will be organized at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, April 16-17 2009. Climate change presents significant challenges for South Asia. Although the effects of climate change on social and environmental systems are likely to be highly uneven (even between communities within South Asia), impoverished regions and populations may bear the brunt of these changes. Therefore, addressing climate change within the South Asian context will require new types of social institutions, cooperative responses and new forms of governance. Papers are invited that address climate change issues within any country or region of South Asia. Preference will be given in paper selection to those that connect their topic to one or more of the broad conference themes of governance, equity, and social justice.

For more information, see the conference website. Abstracts of 250 words or less should be sent to the conference organizers before September 15, 2008.

Coastal Cities Summit

Kirsten Ulsrud — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:38:16 +0000

The International Ocean Institute, USA and the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, USA, are hosting a Coastal Cities Summit on November 17-20 2008, to address the complex challenges that coastal city leaders face as populations increase, resources are depleted, and the impacts of climate change are felt. The Coastal Cities Summit intends to bring together 600-700 coastal city leaders, managers and academics to discuss environmental, social, economic, and public policy challenges and viable solutions. The 3 ½ day conference will focus on three themes: Climate Change, Risk and Vulnerability, and Sustainable Development. The planners are soliciting speakers on areas that are particularly relevant to coastal cities: freshwater, pollution, energy, infrastructure, and port security. All sessions are intended to give a long-needed voice to those who are on the front lines taking leadership on climate change, providing implementation and response plans and continuing to focus on protecting citizens from possible extreme events and human-induced degradation.

Full details are available at the conference website.