30.09.2021

ActNowFilm – Youth Voices on Climate

The ActNowFilm is an official COP26 Universities Project, featuring young people from around the world talking about their lived experiences of climate change, their hopes and fears, their climate pledges, and their demands of the COP Negotiators.

This 30 minute film will debut at this event and will be paired with a panel discussion by some of those involved in its creation, talking about the importance of youth climate voices and how the film was made.

The session will be introduced by Alyssa Gilbert, COP26 Universities Chair Lead, and closed by Emily Shuckburgh, Director of Cambridge Zero, and will feature contributors to the film.

30.09.2021

Changing Consumer Behaviour

Meaningful action on climate change will only be achieved by the positive choices we choose to make – as businesses, governments, or individuals. Without changing our everyday actions, we will not be able to reduce scope 3 emissions.

This panel will draw on evidence – from academia and consumer insights – to discuss how companies, brands and policymakers can harness behavioural science to influence consumers to go greener and make more sustainable choices.

30.09.2021

“Where the streets have no air: South-south experiences on citizen air quality measurements”

Tollulah Oni, PhD. Public Health. Physician scientist and urban epidemiologist and leader of the Global Diet and Physical Activity group at the Unit, Cambridge University, UK.
Marcelo Mena, PhD. Environmental Engineer. Director of the Climate Action Center, PUCV. Chile. Previously, World Bank’s practice manager for climate research and Chile’s former environment minister under President Bachelet.
Valeria Díaz, MSc. Chemistry Engineer. Research coordinator for Analysis and Monitoring at Secretaría de Ambiente Quito Metropolitan District, Ecuador.
Deo Okure, Air Quality Scientist at AirQo, air quality research initiative at Makerere University, Uganda.

This panel will bring together stakeholders from Latin America and Africa who are working to increase public awareness of air pollution by using a bottom-up approach of data generation to execute climate mitigation measures with a focus on the health of children.

Air pollution kills 7 million people worldwide every year and contributes significantly to climate change. Efforts to improve air quality worldwide are critically underfunded, especially in developing countries.
Representatives from Latin American and African local governments and universities will share their experiences using low-cost sensors to measure air quality and innovative forms of community engagement. As a result, countries can start addressing sustainable development goals by cleaning up the air in their cities.

Consequently, collaborative networking, identifying high-impact and low-cost initiatives, and using scientific data for political advocacy can serve as a foundation for long-term monitoring exchange and replicability in important sectors of each territory.

This South-South collaboration aims to inspire other local governments with limited resources by showcasing new bottom-up climate mitigation strategies.

30.09.2021

Walk in Beauty: Future Dreaming through Indigenous Knowledges and Western Science

The Groundswell Climate Collective and the Center for Emergent Diplomacy are co-facilitating an interactive workshop that speaks to the skills and knowledge needed to prepare for surviving in the near-term future in harmony with our Living Systems. Working together with workshop attendees, we introduce Indigenous Knowledges, Futurisms, and the “Adjacent Possible” solutions waiting to be discovered, offering resilience in the face of paralyzing complexity and rapidly expanding global warming.

This participatory workshop is designed as a collaborative dialogue with attendees. We will explore ideas, strategies, and practices, based on a combination of Indigenous knowledges and Western science, that can transform thinking about future worlds that are radically shifting and changing due to the climate crisis.

Lead presenters for this workshop are:

Merle Lefkoff, PhD (she/her)– Founding Director of the Center for Emergent Diplomacy, who will speak about a new project and “Playbook” that trains emerging grass-roots community leaders to facilitate local dialogues for preparing to live peacefully and sustainably together in an altered world.

Mary Roessel, MD (she/her)– Navajo Psychiatrist, American Psychiatric Association Board of Trustees- will share the immense value, power, and resilience of Indigenous Knowledges and ways of being. Indigenous Peoples have expansive and diverse lived experiences that can offer support in addressing the climate crisis with hope and resilience.

Joe Neidhardt, MD (he/him) – Psychiatrist, Founder Groundswell Climate Collective – will speak to the importance of Indigenous voices and Traditional Ecological Knowledges in combatting the complexities of the climate crisis. His extensive experience working and speaking with Indigenous communities around the world illuminate that these knowledges must lead our way forward. Nicole Neidhardt, MFA (she/her)– Navajo Artist, Founder Groundswell Climate Collective – will share an Indigenous Futurist lens through art and activism to illustrate the critical need for Indigenous future thinking in subverting colonial power structures that have led to the climate crisis.

30.09.2021

Arctic Drift – A climate research documentary on the most extensive scientific expedition to the Arctic in history – ‘MOSAiC’

If we don’t make immediate and sweeping efforts to combat climate warming, we’ll soon see ice-free Arctic summers, which will have incalculable repercussions for our own weather and climate. During the one-year MOSAiC expedition, led by the German Alfred Wegener Institute, hundreds of scientists from all over the world explored the epicentre of climate change on board a modern research icebreaker, RV Polarstern, which drifted with the ice through the Arctic Ocean.

The experts investigated the fate of sea ice and the coupled ocean and atmosphere system – for the first time near the North Pole during the polar winter and using modern instruments and sensors – to provide the first-ever comprehensive assessment of the region.

Scientists gathered terabytes of data on the sea ice, the atmosphere above, the ocean below, and the unique wildlife of the Arctic. They observed organisms in and underneath the ice – an ecosystem that eludes remote sensing. This unprecedented data will make it possible to represent more accurately complex interactions in the Arctic climate system.

Camera teams from UFA Show & Factual accompanied the international team of climate scientists for an entire year. The 90-minute documentary takes viewers on a breath-taking and vital expedition to the Arctic, where temperatures are rising at least twice as quickly as in the rest of the world. The MOSAiC expedition set out to substantially enhance our understanding of the Arctic Ocean and Earth’s climate.

The documentary is accompanied by a discussion session with climate scientists: Prof Antje Boetius and Prof Markus Rex (both Alfred Wegener Institute) and producer Phillip Grieß (UFA) will offer further insights into this extraordinary, year-long expedition and answer questions on the latest research findings and climate change.

30.09.2021

Panel discussion: Behavioural climate policy in the global community

Green nudges and other forms of behavioural climate policy can be cost-effective methods to help citizens and communities make climate-friendly choices. This panel brings together scientists and ethicists to discuss how these steering instruments work and what are their effects and limitations.

The panel is chaired by Jarno Tuominen. The panellists are Professor Till Grüne-Yanoff, Professor Kai Ruggeri, Nils Sandman, and Polaris Koi.

Koi, Sandman and Tuominen are Senior Researchers in the Nudging for Climate research consortium, which is part of Finland’s Strategic Research programme. Nils Sandman explains what climate nudges are and introduces the Nudging for Climate research project. The project investigates the viability of nudges to help communities move to climate-friendly transport, and to fortify forests as carbon sinks.

Professor Till Grüne-Yanoff discusses different types of behavioural policy interventions, especially nudges and boosts. Nudges harness existing biases, while boosts foster competences. This has important implications for their effectiveness, persistence and spill-over effects, as well as for their moral acceptability. Grüne-Yanoff describes an experimental design to test these implications for energy conservation in a Swedish student dormitory.

Professor Kai Ruggeri discusses economic inequality, which is a major complication for addressing individual behaviour when it comes to climate change. In short, some green choices are a realistic choice only for healthy and wealthy people, whereas other green policies may backfire for low-income groups. Ruggeri discusses how to address this complication in future climate policy.

Polaris Koi explores whether behavioural insights can help resolve climate change as a problem of global collective action. Behavioural policy has traditionally focused on the local impacts of the policy, but the climate crisis requires a global perspective that goes beyond interventions in the Global North and addresses geographic differences in world health, wealth, and education.

30.09.2021

Countdown to Planet Zero combating climate change with chemistry

Climate change is “code red for humanity”. We aim for ‘Net Zero’ but if the world continues at this pace, there will be no Planet left – Planet Zero.

A recent University of Bath global survey revealed, 60% of today’s youth feels overwhelmed by climate anxiety. Global temperature increases will result in the forced displacement of billions of people, global resource conflict and threaten humanity’s very way of life. This is not the world the Next Generation wants to inherit. They want to be heard. They want a better future. They want to be part of the solution.

This SCI forum provides a platform for the Next Generation of scientists and inventors who are actively developing scientific solutions, to showcase their work and its impact on climate change. It is an opportunity for those anxious about the climate crisis, to challenge these entrepreneurs. This conversation will raise the audience’s awareness of solutions being developed in the following areas:

Fuels of the Future
Turning Waste into Gold
Engineering Nature

Speakers and supporters will come from: Croda, Unilever, GSK, AstraZeneca, Sphera and others.

This Next Generation of scientists and inventors have the power to change our world’s tomorrow. Please do join us at this event.

SCI
Science is critical for everyday life and science-based companies must show leadership in the drive to Net Zero. Tackling climate change means managing carbon and this needs science, specifically chemistry. Without science being applied by industry, we cannot achieve this.

SCI is a place where science meets business – an innovation hub, which brings organisations together to collaboratively develop scientific solutions to address the societal challenges of today.

Learn more about us here: https://www.soci.org/

30.09.2021

Business and Climate Justice: Empowering Women Through a Just Transition

Lunch will be provided at the end of the event.

Climate change is impacting all of us, but the severest and most immediate impacts are already being felt by the most vulnerable. The event will focus on the challenges facing women in the transition to a green economy.

We will explore, among other areas, the issue of energy. As COP President, Alok Sharma, has said, “the clean energy transition is central to tackling climate change”. Clean energy is also an important driver of social impact and a lever for empowering women.

Join us to learn from the latest thinking on empowering women through a green transition, with practical examples from leading businesses and practitioners. Take actionable insights back into your organisation and deepen your understanding of how your organisation can increase the impact and effectiveness of its efforts to address climate change and empower women, through partnerships between business, government and civil society.

Clean energy is key to increasing energy access for rural communities in Africa – with direct benefits for people’s lives, livelihoods, and learning. African rural women and girls are the most impacted by a lack of access to energy, and evidence suggests that COVID-19 has made this situation worse.

Clean energy also provides opportunities for women entrepreneurs – such as building and selling solar lamps and installing and maintaining solar panels. This can help build their economic resilience, and break barriers by placing women at the forefront of innovative technology and sustainable energy, helping to close the gender gap in STEM, and ensuring women in rural communities are included in the green economy.

This event is hosted by Business Fights Poverty, a business-led collaboration network focused on social impact, in partnership with The Corporate Responsibility Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School and The Green Girls Organisation, an NGO that empowers women to provide renewable energy to rural communities.

30.09.2021

The Farewell Glacier by Nick Drake

Join us for a journey into the mysteries, wonders and climate emergencies of the high Arctic.

Scottish Composers, Emma Donald and Isbel Pendlebury, in collaboration with poet and playwright Nick Drake, have created a compelling, informing and emotionally powerful event of music and poetry for COP26. Award-winning Scottish actor, Peter Mullan will read the poems inspired by Nick’s voyage around the Svalbard archipelago. ‘The Farewell Glacier’ gathers together voices both human and non-human from across the Arctic’s past, present and future to tell a story of exploration, exploitation and imagination. From the first European explorers and whalers to ice-cores, mercury and even the Future herself, this is a story of the power and beauty of ice, the calamity of its loss, and a call to the imagination of every one of us to change the future for the better.

The Company

Peter Mullan – Reader

Nick Drake – Poet/Playwright

Emma Donald – Composer/Fiddle

Isbel Pendlebury – Composer/Clarsach

Serena Hill – Creative Associate

Edel Rae – Producer

The Farewell Glacier’ is performed by kind permission of the publishers Bloodaxe Books Ltd. Music copyright Emma Donald and Isbel Pendlebury We gratefully acknowledge the support and generosity of: The Pebble Trust The Highland Museum of Childhood The individual supporters who, for the sake of the climate, invested their trust and money in our story.

30.09.2021

Earth Observers: From space frontiers to frontline farmers; a women-led debate on climate justice.

Women leaders from the worlds of science, space exploration, activism and the arts discuss how they’ve witnessed climate change from unique vantage points, and what they’ve learned about solutions, collaboration, and ambition.

Join Nicole Stott (Veteran-NASA Astronaut) and Julia Sanchez (Secretary General, ActionAid) as they share their experiences alongside women who are on the frontlines of climate change. Hear from women who are leading the fight against climate change in their communities and developing inclusive and sustainable solutions to help safeguard their lives and livelihoods.

30.09.2021

Catalysing our Net Zero Future: working with people to take action on climate change

While systemic government action is critical to our low carbon transition, people also want to know what they can do to take climate action. To effectively and fairly tackle climate change citizens must be engaged and have access to information that can support them to take action.

This session focuses on the potential for people as agents of change – in different roles and different ways – to contribute to a Net Zero and climate resilient future. Bringing together cutting edge data and expertise from academics and practitioners, the session will offer different examples of how to understand the barriers people face to taking action, and solutions on how to break them down.

The session will cover the spectrum of actions people can take, from low-carbon lifestyles; to changing social and cultural norms; providing social mandates for change; to pushing for systemic change through activism and advocacy.

As well as sharing our own research, we will use audience engagement to bring everyone into conversation about how we can catalyse our low carbon and climate resilient future.

Speakers:

Dr Katharine Steentjes, CAST

Dr Lewis Akenji, Hot or Cool institute

Dr Susie Wang, Climate Outreach

Dr Vanessa Timmer, OneEarth Canada

Chair: Dr. Stuart Capstick, CAST (Centre for Climate and Social Transformations)