As part of the University of Queensland’s ongoing partnership with adelphi, the Environment, Conflict and Cooperation exhibition was on display at the University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane for three weeks from July-August 2016.
The exhibition was very well received by students and staff at UQ as well as the wider Brisbane community. The ECC Exhibition is part of the Climate Diplomacy Initiative that is a collaborative effort of the Federal Foreign Office of Germany with adelphi, a leading Berlin-based think tank for applied research, policy analysis and consultancy on global change issues.
The exhibition was accompanied by two public events. Associate Professor Matt McDonald from UQ’s School of Politics and International Studies presented a seminar on ‘Climate Change and Security’. The lecture outlined discourses and contemporary thinking on the climate change-security relationship, particularly as it relates to the nation-state, the international community, human welfare or even ecosystem resilience. It made a strong case for climate change as the defining global security threat: now and especially into the future.
The seminar was well-attended and concluded with a lively discussion on climate thresholds, range of security implications and likely next steps across policy and practice.
The exhibition’s closing was marked by a panel discussion on ‘Issues of Global Change’ that brought together three of UQ’s top researchers in the areas of water, energy, mining and conflict. Dr Nina Hall (Global Change Institute, Sustainable Water Program), Professor Paul Lant (co-leader Energy and Poverty Research Group) and Professor Saleem Ali (Sustainable Minerals Institute) each presented their views on the interlinkages among these three critical areas of global concern as well as outlined UQ’s leading efforts on this front.
In total, nearly 80 people attended the two events. The exhibition received a strong endorsement from the speakers as well as the audience for its innovative style of story-telling that brought together compelling evidence of change happening across several world regions. A final message that came through from these discussions was around the enormous challenge that lies ahead of us and that there is no room for complacency moving forward.
You can explore the online version of the Environment, Conflict and Cooperation exhibition here.
A new publication on SDGs and foreign policy, prepared by researchers at the German think tank adelphi, highlights a phenomenon I call this the ‘Great Splintering’ – the fracturing of political will for collective action on the global stage. This article outlines five steps we could take to revive multilateralism.
Satellite analysis shows ‘vanishing’ lake has grown since 1990s, but climate instability is driving communities into the arms of Boko Haram and Islamic State. Climate change is aggravating conflict around Lake Chad, but not in the way experts once thought, according to new research.
At a meeting of the Arctic Council, secretary of state Mike Pompeo refused to identify global warming as a threat, instead hailing an oil rush as sea ice melts. The US refused to join other Arctic countries in describing climate change as a key threat to the region, as a two-day meeting of foreign ministers drew to a close on Tuesday in Ravaniemi, Finland.
Around 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihood, and about 2.6 billion people rely directly on agriculture. Deforestation, land degradation, and unsustainable management of ecosystems threaten those livelihoods and may contribute to resource-related conflicts and social unrest.