online: first CSSN conference on Global Climate Governance in the Face of Obstruction, next week June 8,9,10

[Roberts, J. Timmons]

Dear colleagues and friends: [apologies for cross-posts, and please forward to other lists and interested people]

Lingering COVID restrictions in Germany forced us to take this conference online, which allows many more people to join. I hope you will, it's really a big step to have an international conference focused on climate obstruction. The event support firm has been fabulous, and we have dozens of virtual tables/expo booths/book exhibits already open on the website, which has the full schedule. The online days are short, 3 hours on Wednesday the 8th, then 90 minutes on the 9th and 10th. Everything will end up streamable online at the conference site. 

If you're interested in joining the Climate Social Science Network, have a look at our website (the conference video is right at the top), and send us an email here, so it won't get lost. We're focusing first on understanding obstruction organizations and their strategies for blocking and slowing action on climate change, and looking for an international and diverse set of scholars doing peer-reviewed research in that area. We now have 300 scholars involved in ten working groups, from over 35 countries. 

Here's a chunk of our press release.  Take care everyone.

Timmons

A first-of-its-kind conference will bring together leading social scientists to explore obstruction of global climate action. Co-hosted by the Climate Social Science Network headquartered at Brown University and the German Development Institute (DIE), the conference held virtually on 8-10 June will coincide with the Subsidiary Bodies sessions SB-56 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Bonn, 6-16 June.

“What’s holding up progress on climate change is not science, solutions or technology, but vested interests,” said Timmons Roberts, Executive Director of the Climate Social Science Network. “This conference will analyze how and why climate action is being obstructed and how we can break through this logjam.” 

The virtual conference will engage key UNFCCC participants and international organization representatives, researchers, civil society and business actors for substantive science-policy-dialogue.

“Greenwashing and obstruction undermine trust in multilateral climate governance. It must be overcome to advance sustainable development and climate justice.” said Steffen Bauer, head of the Klimalog project at the Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik / German Development Institute (DIE).

Conference sessions include:

• The Structure of Climate Obstruction and the Critical Role of Climate Social Science

• Climate Negotiations and the Role of the Fossil Fuel Industry

• National Contexts of Obstruction

• Obstruction in the International Political Economy of Climate Governance

• Loss and Damage: What Stands in the Way of Progress and What is Needed to Move Ahead

• Reflections from the Science/Activism Frontier: The Case of Solar Geoengineering

The majority of the conference will be open to the public, discussing key issues of how climate action is being framed in public discourse, how past actions – and inactions – have brought about present challenges, and how we can best approach impactful change for the future at the local, national, international, and global levels.

Learn more and register here https://conference2022.cssn.org/e/registernow The conference will have virtual event production provided by We & Goliath. 

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J. Timmons Roberts

Ittleson Professor of Environmental Studies and Sociology, Brown University 

Executive Director, Climate Social Science Network

Director, the Climate and Development Lab 

Institute at Brown for Environment and Society 

Brown Department of Sociology

On Twitter @timmonsroberts