Past events of the Academia Europaea Task Force on Environment, Sustainability and Climate (TFESC)#

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Changing minds or changing systems to avert dangerous climate change?#

This webinar, held on 29th November 2022, brought together experts from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds to address the question.

Chaired by Professor Ole Petersen, Cardiff Hub Director, the webinar was co-organised between the Cardiff Hub and Academia Europaea’s Environmental Taskforce. A panel of four members of Academia Europaea (MAEs) considered whether pathways to avert dangerous climate change should focus on changing systems or influencing mindsets.

Our panel of experts were:#

• Professor Karen O’Brien MAE, Professor of Human Geography. University of Oslo; Co-Chair of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (IPBES) Transformative Change Assessment

• Professor Nebojsa Nakicenovic MAE, Emeritus Scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and Professor at TU Wien; Deputy-Chair of the Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the European Commission

• Professor Antje Wiener MAE, Professor of Political Science & Global Governance, University of Hamburg

• Professor Matthias Karmasin MAE, Director of the Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies (CMC) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Klagenfurt

The consensus within the expert panel is that it is both. Climate change is a global and complex problem, requiring multidisciplinary and multi-societal solutions. The panel considered a range of issues, such as beliefs and values, media and communications, trust in science, and technological innovation. A large proportion of the webinar was given over to audience interaction.

Read the briefing paper#

Read the briefing paper summarising the key themes and ideas discussed at our webinar.