The age of global emergencies: climate change and action

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A digital meeting that brings together a multidisciplinary combination of perspectives and insights involving scientists, decision makers, business representatives, and NGOs. The Annual Conference of the SISC – the Italian Society for Climate Sciences confirms to be a unique opportunity to interact with outstanding experts, to explore advanced scientific research, and to address cutting-edge tools at the science-society interface.

The pandemic doesn’t stop the progress of scientific research in the fields of science and management of climate change, nor the need to share knowledge advances and new ideas for climate action. The 8th Annual Conference of the Italian Society for Climate Sciences took place online from October 21 to 23, 2020, and was open to anyone for free.

Entitled “ClimRisk2020: Time for Action! Raising the ambition of climate action in the age of global emergencies”, the Conference was organized in partnership with the CMCC Foundation and supported by the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE). Once again, it represented an important interdisciplinary platform at an international level, gathering more than 300 participants among leading scientists, researchers, economists, practitioners, business leaders, and policy makers, whose activities are focused on different aspects of climate change, its impacts and related policies. More than 70 papers and over 40 posters were presented in five parallel oral session slots and in two poster sessions.

“Risk” and “Action” were the watchwords of the 2020 edition of the Conference. On the one hand, the programme included reflections on how to explore, predict and project climate variations and extremes, and on the study of climate related impacts and risks. On the other hand, participants shared they research on climate action at different levels, from adaptation options to societal transformations and behaviours, from mitigation technologies to climate policies and transition pathways in the context of sustainable development.

Looking for solutions to the climate crisis was also the focus of the high-level keynote lectures of the Conference. The status of the future perspectives for the global cooperation on climate change was the theme addressed by Prof. Scott Barrett, Vice Dean at the School of International and Public Affairs and Professor of Natural Resource Economics at the Lenfest-Earth Institute, Columbia University, USA. Dr. Sabine Fuss, Head of working group Sustainable Resource Management and Global Change at the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, explored the role of carbon dioxide removal for CO2 neutrality.  Ms Andra Meneganzin, PhD student at the Department of Biology, University of Padua, Italy, presented her original and interdisciplinary work that studies the anthropogenic climate change under an evolutionary perspective.

“In many respects, this was the most satisfying and successful SISC Conference. In fact, in the face of the many technical difficulties linked to the novelty of holding the conference online, we found a great desire for participation. Furthermore, the quality of the interventions was remarkably high, confirming the excellent level already achieved in previous editions of the conference” said Silvio Gualdi, president of the Italian Society for Climate Sciences and head of the “Climate Simulations and Predictions” Division at the CMCC Foundation. “In short, the SISC conference is proving to be an important appointment for the scientific community of climate sciences, able to withstand even complicated conditions.”

The keynote speeches and the presentations were recorded and will be available for the public. More information will be soon available on the website of the Italian Society for Climate Sciences: www.sisclima.it.

 

About the Italian Society for Climate Sciences (SISC) 

The Italian Society for Climate Sciences (SISC) was created  to serve as a meeting point for scientists from different disciplines, who use climate information for their research: from climatologists to physicists and chemists, geographers to agronomists, economists to political scientists, and all scholars that deal with climate-related sciences and their applications. The Italian Society for Climate Sciences aims at contributing to scientific progress and innovation of climatic sciences in Italy by promoting the convergence of disciplines and multidisciplinary research. The aims of the Association are pursued in particular through the organization of conferences and debates addressed to the scientific and policy communities, the implementation of web-communications, the promotion of training courses for young graduates, and collaboration with multidisciplinary doctoral courses on climate science.

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