After the UN Summit, climate change is the protagonist in Venice: strategies, risks and impacts at the International SISC Conference at Ca’ Foscari

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Barack Obama talks about it as no US president before him. The United Nations have dedicated a recent global summit to it. As the entire world is asking for answers on climate change, the scientific community is meeting in Venice to take stock of progress on the most advanced knowledge that hold together a multidisciplinary universe. There are about a hundred presentations, a host of international importance, a focus on media and communication for a unique blend of knowledge and skills, and a dialogue to address one of the most important challenges of our time. All of this started at Ca’Dolfin at the Second Annual Conference of the Italian Society for Climate Sciences (29-30 September 2014).

Climate change is a highly topical theme that has climbed the global agenda.

This is confirmed by the United Nations Summit in New York, where concerns relating to climate change are among the main topics of the global stage. It is also confirmed by the attention that Barack Obama, as perhaps no President of the United States of America has ever done before him, dedicates to the risks arising from climate for society, for the economy, for health, and for the environment. It is precisely on these issues that the Second Annual SISC Conference focuses: two days of studies and comparisons were inaugurated at the beautiful Ca’Dolfin Palace of the Ca’Foscari University in Venice. Addressing the challenge of climate change requires, first of all, a solid scientific knowledge, which can provide a basis for informed decisions in order to undertake adaptation strategies and effective policies to reduce GHG emissions.

“This is a complex issue – claims the undersecretary of the Italian Ministry of Environment and Protection of Land and Sea, Barbara Degani in her initial greeting – whose impacts are often dealt with as emergencies costing more effort, also economically, than the implementation of organic and planned preventive actions.”

One discipline of science alone is not enough to thoroughly investigate the complexity of the climate. For this reason, the SISC, explained President Antonio Navarra, is building an interdisciplinary platform that can find methods, content and languages ​​capable of talking to all those whose interests converge, for different reasons and from different directions, on the issue of climate change.

The title of the conference is significant of the multidisciplinarity to which SISC gives voice. “Climate Change: scenarios, impacts and policies”: these words encompass the plural approach that the conference lays out within the sessions – as pointed out by Simona Masina, chair (together with Carlo Carraro) of the Scientific Committee that selected the works for the Conference. SISC presented the state of art of the most advanced climate research on very different areas, that include the latest knowledge gained from climate science, in-depth studies on strategies for mitigation and adaptation, focus on the management and evaluation of risks, vulnerabilities and impacts in different sectors of socio-economic systems, such as agriculture, tourism, water resources, ecosystems, energy, and even cultural heritage.

The Second SISC Conference takes place in a historical moment in which the international public opinion view climate change as one of the most troubling challenges for the foreseeable future and the present. On the one hand the Summit in New York, and the other the expectations of the meeting that will take place in Paris in December 2015.

The COP21 – as Carlo Carraro has reminded us – will be a moment when questions to those who study climate change will be amplified in order to understand a little more about the research in the field, the knowledge gained and how aware policy makers are of the support that science can offer.

All these topics are discussed in the last IPCC report (AR5), probably the most important publication on the topic of climate change, and are taken from Thomas Stocker, chairman of the IPCC WG1, in the lecture that the SISC Conference opened with. The lecture highlighted how the international scientific community has reached a nearly unanimous consensus that the warming of the climate system is unequivocal. It is clear that human activities have an influence on the climate system and that it will not be possible to limit the impacts of climate change without making substantial reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases.

Governments – continued Stocker – have signed the IPCC report and are therefore aware of the fact that in the light of the scientific results obtained, if one wants to pursue the ambition to reduce the average warming of the Earth, appropriate decisions appear to be urgent.
On Monday afternoon, at 18:00, scientists and experts in media and communication discussed the new languages useful to a more effective communication of climate research results. The conference ended with the under 40 award for G. Messori (Stockholm University), author of a paper deemed particularly worthy by the Scientific Committee, entitled “A Zonal View of Atmospheric Heat Transport Variability”.

You can also read online (in Italian only):

Second Annual SISC Conference – Italian Society for Climate Sciences “Climate Change: scenarios, impacts and policies”
29-30 September 2014
Venice – Ca’ Dolfin (Dorsoduro 3825 / D).

Website
The complete program is available at this link.
Follow the conference on Twitter and Facebook: # sisclima2014

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