Planet under Pressure Conference: New Knowledge towards Solutions

The four-day conference is sponsored by the International Council for Science's (ICSU) global environmental change research programmes (DIVERSITAS, IGBP, IHDP, WCRP). It will bring together natural, physical and social scientists, together with economists. It will also involve engineers, health specialists and many others disciplines, plus national and international policymakers, industry representatives, technologists, NGOs and development experts.

About the Conference

Chief Scientific Advisor: Elinor Ostrom
Co-chairs: Mark Stafford Smith (CSIRO), Lidia Brito (UNESCO)

Vision

To provide a comprehensive update on the state of the planet, the pressure it is under, and the societal transformation required to move to a sustainable pathway.

The conference will discuss solutions, at all scales, to move societies on to a sustainable pathway. It will provide scientific leadership for the Earth Summit (Rio+20) also in 2012.

Guiding the direction for the conference are the International Council for Science’s five grand challenges for global sustainability research: observations, forecasting, responses, thresholds and innovation. The conference will also support international assessment processes, for example the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the new biodiversity assessment, plus the Millennium Development Goals.

The London conference will act as a platform to strengthen and enlarge the global-change research community and mark a move to a new vision for global-change research. It will bring together leading social and natural scientists, to create a new understanding and environment for tackling global sustainability challenges. Working across scales will be a strong theme for the conference. The event will include strong policy interaction. The programme will be designed to attract policymakers, industry, health specialists, and many others. Scientists will be encouraged to discuss options and solutions.

 

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