CCSI 2014 - 3rd International Conference on Climate Change & Social Issues 2014

Since the industrial era began, wealthy nations have released huge amounts of carbon into the earth's atmosphere and altered the surface of the planet. As greenhouse gas concentrations have risen, so too have global temperatures. The past decade was the hottest of the past 150 years, and possibly of the past millennium. The hottest 22 years on record have occurred in the 25 years since 1980. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasts a global temperature increase of 1.4ºC to 5.8ºC above 1990 temperatures by 2100. While we are already committed to a warmer climate, it is not too late to avoid a dangerously hot and unstable new world. There is still a window of opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and realise the promise of a prosperous, fair and sustainable 21st century. In a hotter and more volatile world, both rich and poor stand to lose. Those already affected by poverty, malnutrition and disease will face displacement and new hardships. In the developed world, our industries, livelihoods and public health will face serious threats from drought, disease and extreme weather events. The impacts of greenhouse gas emissions will disproportionately affect those societies who have contributed the least to the problem. Low-lying Pacific states, collectively responsible for fewer than 0.6% of the world's emissions, face dispossession. Yet the worst offenders, including Australia and the United States, continue to pollute at historically high levels. Justice demands that wealthy polluters should end their reliance on fossil fuels, and embrace a future based on a fair share of resource use for all.
Our actions today will determine the climate of tomorrow. By choosing to take action now we limit the future damage. The alternative is an environmental, economic and humanitarian catastrophe of our own making.
This conference specifically addresses the social and gender dimensions of climate change. We are particularly interested to hear about your research, knowledge and experiences on the development of policy, strategies, approaches, tools, methodologies that can be adopted or adapted to better inform policy discussions by institutions, organisations and the international community to tackle the climate change challenge with a social and gender dimension. We are also keen to hear about grass roots research which clearly identifies needs and knowledge gaps for further research.
We hope that this conference will stimulate discussions and debates and allows for the flow and exchange of knowledge and ideas thereby creating a unique resource and point of reference in this field. This will be an interactive conference underpinned by working group sessions. The findings from this conference will enable us to set up working groups in order to take forward some of the actions and recommendations on the climate change challenge.