GECHS

GECHS has written a report on climate adaptation for the Development Fund, a Norwegian NGO working with environment and development projects through southern organizations and networks. The aim of the report is threefold:

1. to present a method for examining poverty reduction projects and programs based on a comprehensive approach to climate adaptation, in order to identify, plan, and evaluate climate adaptation activities;
2. to identify what sustainable adaptation measures can look like in development projects;
3. to present some guiding principles for the design and implementation of climate change adaptation in poverty reduction strategies and activities.

The report was launched during the 30th year anniversary of the Development Fund on September 9th 2008. Authors were Kirsten Ulsrud, Linda Sygna and Karen O’Brien at the GECHS project, in close collaboration with the Development Fund and it’s partners in Nicaragua, Nepal and Ethiopia. The report, “More than rain: Identifying sustainable pathways for climate adaptation and poverty reduction”, can be downloaded here.

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.

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.

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.

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.