Headline:
Climate Engineering – Ethical Challenges and Governance
In the course of a three day conference on “The Ethical Challenges of Climate Engineering” from 22nd to 24th of May 2013 hold by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, there will also be the possibility to discuss challenges and problems of the governance of CE research as well as possible deployments from different parts of the world (e.g. Europe, USA, Australia, Asia) with leading experts in normative theory, environmental ethics and philosophy will answer your questions. The public round table discussion on “Climate Engineering Governance – Different perspectives from Around the World” will take place on May 23rd, 2013 from 6:30 pm to 8 pm.
The goal of the conference on challenges for ethics induced by Climate Engineering, however, is not to evaluate CE from a particular normative perspective, but rather to identify important challenges put forward by CE, and to search for ways to best deal with these challenges:
- How applicable are our normative theories for problems raised by CE, e.g. uncertainties, complex processes and large scale and long lasting effects?
- What do different normative approaches bring to bear on the various ethical aspects of CE and for which do we lack plausible normative analyses?
The conference doesn’t want to provide a solution but rather focus on clarifying the agenda for future research in climate ethics with respect to CE. Doing so, we hope to help to bundle future research on normative aspects of CE and to create a network of researchers dedicated to this task.
For decades Climate Engineering – the planetary-scale engineering of the climate aimed at intentionally counteracting the undesired side effects (global warming) of other human activities (emitting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions) – has failed to gain traction in the mainstream scientific community. But with little progress on climate change policy and growing global GHG emissions, Climate Engineering is increasingly being considered in scientific and political circles around the world. For many Climate Engineering signals special issues of governance and political legitimacy, prompting the need for new or strengthened global norms of justice and community, and novel institution. For others talk about these issues is futile at the current state of affairs and the related uncertainties.
The background of the conference is the interdisciplinary research microcosm of the IASS cluster Sustainable Interactions with the Atmosphere (SIWA) which is investigating the impacts, uncertainties and risks of CE, and the EU project European Transdisciplinary Assessment of Climate Engineering (EuTRACE), which is coordinated by the IASS.
We welcome anybody who is interested in taking part in the public discussion as well as media representatives. Please register for organizational reasons with media [at] iass-potsdam [dot] de (media[at]iass-potsdam[dot]de) . The round table discussion will be in English.
Public Round Table Discussion
“Climate Engineering Governance – Different Perspectives from Around the World”
23rd May, 2013 | 6.30 - 8 pm
Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies | Berliner Straße 130 | 14467 Potsdam