Daily Archives: January 15, 2010

Harvard Online Course post-Copenhagen

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Hello,

    The Harvard Extension School is offereing an online undergraduate and graduate-level course focusing on  the theme: “After Copenhagen, 2009″ in the forthcoming Spring semester.  This course is believed to be, in fact,  the first university course to focus specifically on what the world community needs to do about the changing global climate now that the Copenhagen meetings have concluded.  It will be accessible around the world through the Harvard Extension School’s Sustainability and Environmental Management Program.

    Supported by the research resources of the Cambridge Climate Research Associates (CCRA), this 15-week long course will offer 2 hours a week of online lectures and extensive online multi-media support and research documentation for all students.

    The course focuses on the latest science of climate change as well as upon the social impact and diplomacy of our evolving global circumstance.  Students, citizens and mid-career professionals with an enormous range of backgrounds have found this course to be very fruitful for their own work — whether they are journalists, school-teachers, government officials, military personnel, business leaders, city planners, public health officers, etc –  or, in fact, graduate or undergraduate students at other institutions who have enrolled in this course to supplement their own degree work.  

    This course is offered as part of a sequence of courses over the years of the “Climate Talks Project” (http://climate-talks.net/).  The syllabus from the courses in previous years is available online, but the key feature of this new course will be its focus specifically upon the post-Copenhagen moment in the evolution of global climate understanding and action.

    Enrollment online is possible until 24 January and beyond that in extenuating circumstances.

    Cordially,
   

Prof. T. C. Weiskel

Harvard Extension School
Global Climate Change
   http://courses.dce.harvard.edu/~envre13

Call for Papers: Climate Governance Conference

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CALL FOR PAPERS

‘Democratizing Climate Governance’

15-16 July 2010

Australian National University

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Dear Climate-L readers,

The ANU Centre for Deliberative Democracy & Global Governance invites paper proposals for the ‘Democratizing Climate Governance’ Conference, to be held 15-16 July 2010, at the Australian National University.

Climate change poses considerable challenges to democracy. Its global nature questions the traditional parameters of our political communities and moral responsibilities. Its complexity and urgency challenge the capacity of existing democratic procedures to produce effective outcomes. Transnational institutions and processes developed so far for mitigating and adapting to climate change often elude basic democratic values. Decisions on whether, where, and how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are generally made by elites in spatially and temporally distant settings, thus undermining the legitimacy of such decisions. Meanwhile, those most vulnerable to the consequences of climate change tend also to be, in many cases, the most socially disadvantaged and democratically disempowered. In this context, a key concern for scholars and citizens alike is how to ensure that the people who will be affected by climate change and climate governance are represented in decision-making processes. More effective democracy is likely to be instrumental to climate justice.

The purpose of this conference is to examine these challenges and explore potential avenues for democratizing climate governance. We invite proposals that address issues of accountability, representation, participation, and legitimacy, as well as the appropriate roles of national and transnational institutions, civil society, scientists, scholars, communities, and citizens confronted with issue complexity. Climate governance manifests in various forms and at various levels, as such we invite papers concerned with public, private, and hybrid modes of governance at local, national, and/or global levels. Understanding and responding to the democratic challenges posed by climate change will require advances in theory as well as empirical research, and we welcome papers that fall into either or both of these categories. Papers that approach the challenge from a discursive or deliberative perspective are especially encouraged, however we welcome a range of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives.

PLENARY SPEAKERS: Sheila Jasanoff (Harvard), Karin Bäckstrand (Lund), Ronnie Lipschutz (University of California, Santa Cruz), Robyn Eckersley (Melbourne).

FEES: Registration for the conference is free, and paper-givers from Australia can claim a $300 contribution to travel expenses.

DEADLINES: Deadline for paper proposals is 1 April 2010

SUBMISSIONS: If you would like to present a paper, please send a title and abstract (300 words) to Alessandra Pecci: Alessandra.Pecci@anu.edu.au

Please also find attached the conference flyer in pdf format for your reference, and for circulation to your networks.

Please visit http://deliberativedemocracy.anu.edu.au/ for conference-related updates and information.

We look forward to receiving your proposal and hope you will be able to join us in July in Canberra.

Kind regards,

Hayley Stevenson

Postdoctoral Fellow

Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance

Research School of Social Sciences

The Australian National University

CANBERRA  ACT  0200

Ph. +61 2 6125 1723

http://polsc.anu.edu.au/staff/stevenson/

http://deliberativedemocracy.anu.edu.au/