Internationally known experts and industry executives as well as leading-edge thinkers will explore and identify institutional strategies that encourage and support climate change research at the Institution Building for Climate Change Solutions workshop.
Motivated by York’s own climate change initiative, the workshop will run March 16 from 8:30am to 5pm at the Schulich Lecture Hall, Executive Learning Centre, W132 Seymour Schulich Building, Keele campus. The event is open to everyone in the York community. RSVP by March 12 to indicate attendance at the lunch and reception.
Senior donor and government officials and stakeholders will join other speakers in discussing how York can support research that increases overall societal capacity for climate change.
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Speakers John Turnpenny (left), University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK; Professor Creso Sá, University of Toronto; and Stewart Cohen, University of British Columbia, will discuss the theoretical dimensions of knowledge production in the context of climate change.
Turnpenny is a senior research associate at the Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment, based at the University of East Anglia, working on the Methods & Tools for Integrated Sustainability Assessment project.
Right: Creso Sá
Sá is a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. His main interests are research universities and science policy. Cohen is a senior researcher in the Department of Forest Resources Management at UBC, where he is contributing to Environment Canada's mandate to develop and evaluate strategies to adapt to the impacts of weather, climate and climate change.
Left: Don MacIver
Chris West, director of the United Kingdom Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP); Don MacIver, director of the Adaptation & Impacts Research Division of Environment Canada; and Mickey Glantz, director of Consortium for Capacity Building at the University of Colorado at Boulder will discuss the evolution and development of climate change institutions.
At UKCIP, West helps organizations adapt to inevitable climate change. Since 1997 UKCIP has been working with the public, private and voluntary sectors to assess how a changing climate will affect construction, working practices, demand for goods and services, biodiversity, service delivery and health. MacIver contributes to Environment Canada’s mandate to provide Canadian decision- and policy-makers, organizations, the private sector and government with the information needed to achieve sustainability today and in the future.
Right: Mickey Glantz
At the Consortium for Capacity Building, Glantz’s initial and primary focus of concern is enhancing the use and value of climate and climate-related information for the betterment of societies and the well-being of individuals.
Based on insights generated by these and additional speakers, as well as comments and questions by workshop participants, a professionally facilitated design exercise will be held to develop an institutional plan for York’s climate change initiative.
For more information, contact James MacLellan at ext. 40080 or climateworkshop@gmail.com.