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cfp: Climate Change, Decarbonization and the Urban Energy Transition

University of Hamburg, Germany

October 12-13, 2017

 

The workshop is aiming for developing key concepts and synthesizing the state of the art of urban transformation processes in relation to climate change, decarbonization and energy transition. Thematically the workshop is motivated by the worldwide growing urbanization which leads to a spatial concentration of population, economic activity and mobility on the one hand and by increasing CO2 emissions and climate change on the other. In order to promote pathways towards urban energy transition and decarbonization several strategies should be considered. Among those, the production, distribution and consumption of renewable energy are relevant key areas. There is still a lack of systematic integration of concepts, models and empirical evidence, combined with an insufficient knowledge base and a broad range of uncoordinated and dispersed solutions.

The workshop focuses on developing and integrating concepts and tools of sustainable urban energy landscapes and transformation, particularly renewable energy and low-carbon pathways. Furthermore, the workshop contributes to evidence-based strategies and experiences for climate and energy policies on the urban scale. Four research areas will be addressed (For details, please visit the workshop website and the call in pdf, the links are provided below):

1) Socio-technical and environmental topics of urban energy transition
2) City structure, urban land use and energy consumption
3) Distributional effects of urban energy policies
4) Multi-level models and governance concepts to manage transition processes

Invited Speakers:
Derk Loorbach
Janette Webb
Jochen Monstadt
Jonathan Rutherford
Sergio Tirado Herero
Stefan Bouzarovski

Intended post-workshop publication: Edited volume of contributions or a special issue in a journal

Please submit your abstract (300 to 500 words) focusing on one of the above areas to the workshop coordinator Ms. Ting Ting Tracy Cheung (Email: ting.ting.cheung@uni-hamburg.de) by Wednesday, 31st May 2017.

For more information, please visit our website and read the call in pdf.
Call for papers:
https://www.clisap.de/fileadmin/B-Research/B/B5/Workshops/CfP_Climate_Change__Decarbonization_and_the_Urban_Energy_Transition.pdf

Conference webpage:
https://www.clisap.de/research/b:-climate-manifestations-and-impacts/b5:-urban-systems-test-bed-hamburg/workshop-climate-change-decarbonization-and-the-urban-energy-transition-2017/

cfp: 10th annual NNC conference and PhD course

Environmental Asia, November 20–24, 2017, Oslo, Norway.

IKOS – Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages,

Oslo University and NIAS – Nordic Institute of Asian Studies

Global environmental degradation and climate change are possibly the greatest challenges of our times. They have roots in humanity’s long history of creatively making use of natural resources to generate change, often with unforeseen and unpredictable consequences. As the gravity of the world economy shifts east, Asia finds itself at the center of the global environmental crisis. It is home not just to 60 percent of the world’s population, but also to some of the world’s most rapidly expanding middle classes in the largest emerging economies. As a consequence of climate change, Asia is already feeling the social and economic impact of intensified droughts, floods, storms and pollution.

The aim of this conference is to facilitate critical discussions about Asia’s environmental pathways. What interests are at stake in current environmental policies, and who represents them? How will Asian societies deal with the double-bind of economic development and environmental protection? What roles do Asian religions and philosophies play in environmental debates? How have people reacted to and coped with major environmental changes in the past, and how do they anticipate the future? By exploring these questions, the conference aspires to promote a deeper understanding of environmental change in Asia.

Energy in Asia

How energy is produced, transmitted and consumed can have immense cultural, social, political and environmental consequences. A long-term structural change in energy systems towards increasing use of renewable energy sources – the so called ‘Energy transition’ seems inevitable to tackle contemporary global and local environmental challenges. Simultaneously, a considerable portion of Asia’s population lack access to adequate energy, resulting in health deprivation, poverty and social inequality. As the world’s most populous region, the complexities of energy in Asia are in need of further exploration that moves beyond conventional technical and economic factors. We are looking for panelists from the Social Sciences, Humanities or Inter-disciplinary Studies that are interested in exploring these issues across Asia.

Keynote Speakers

  • Georgina Drew, Lecturer, Anthropology and Development Studies, The University of Adelaide, Australia
  • Susan Darlington, Professor, Anthropology and Asian Studies, Hampshire College, USA
  • Heiner Roetz, Professor, Department of East Asian Studies, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany

Commentators for the PhD Course

  • Susan Darlington, Professor, Anthropology and Asian Studies, Hampshire College
  • Heiner Roetz, Professor, Department of East Asian Studies, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
  • Georgina Drew, Lecturer, Anthropology and Development Studies, The University of Adelaide
  • Geir Helgesen, Director, NIAS – Nordic Institute of Asian Studies
  • Mette Halskov Hansen, Professor, University of Oslo
  • Arild Engelsen Ruud, Professor, University of Oslo
  • Aike Peter Rots, Associate Professor, University of Oslo
  • Rune Svaverud, Professor, University of Oslo
  • Kenneth Bo Nielsen, Researcher and Network Coordinator, University of Oslo

 

Deadline for submitting abstract 15 August 2017 (maximum 300 words) For more information, please go to the conference website: www.environmental-asia.com<http://www.environmental-asia.com/>

cfp: Nuclear Waste and its Side-Effects – Interdisciplinary Conference 2017

ENTRIA 2017 conference

Interdisciplinary Research on Radioactive Waste: Ethics – Society – Technology

Braunschweig, Germany:  26th – 28th September 2017

Submission deadline: April 15th 2017.

The planned sessions will cover:

  • Substantiating the German Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) Pathway: Time Frames, Technical and Procedural Issues
    The topic is meant to provide scientific support for further specifying details of the pathway “final disposal with reversibility” not yet defined in the recommendations by the German “Endlagerkommission”. Examples include timeframes for the several stages (e.g. “monitoring in advance to closure of the repository”), recoverability requirements, or participation issues.
  • Experiences in Interdisciplinary Cooperation: Methods, Challenges, Outcome
    Scientific cooperation in interdisciplinary research projects is challenging. There are only few books, journals and reports on the subject. The topic focusses on experiences in interdisciplinary cooperation between natural and technical scientists and researchers in social sciences and humanities.
  • Technical Barriers in Radioactive Waste Storage and Disposal
    All storage and disposal options for radioactive residues need a bundle of reliable technical barriers for all considered time steps. This session addresses scientists and engineers dealing with long term performance prediction and testing, structural analysis or generic design of these barriers.
  • Governance & Participation
    New Governance with early modes of public participation and integration of stakeholders has been a promising approach in the last decade, especially in contested policy fields. In the case of critical infrastructures like nuclear waste disposal sites the potential for human intrusion and the uncontrolled distribution of radionuclides was scandalized by NGOs, pressure groups of the anti-nukes movement and a number of political parties. Governmental organizations and international institutions were willing to integrate the interested public in decision-making, e.g. in Switzerland, Sweden and in the last years also in Germany. In this section the theoretic and conceptual aspects of governance in nuclear waste management and the embeddedness of conflicts at concretes sites are discussed. Further, experiences with participation in the context of radioactive waste management in specific countries are addressed. Results from interdisciplinary research and also empirical case studies are welcome.
  • Governance & Monitoring
    Critical infrastructures, which are built to ensure the safety and security of e.g. dangerous wastes, need to be at the center of attention of governmental regulation and authorities. If the protection of human health and the environment as much as the ethical question of a “Good Life” for current society and for future generations are considered a societal aim, the state and its agencies have to build confidence, with the often very concerned public through robust management programs and public dialogue. A screening of the state of the art for long-term monitoring and robust institutions in scientific literature on dangerous wastes showed that plans for technological monitoring, long-term governance and also for public dialogue are not well-prepared. The concepts of reversibility and retrievability render these tasks even more challenging. The aim of this session is to discuss the challenges of and approaches to technical monitoring and long-term governance in an interdisciplinary manner. Scientists from radioactive waste management, spatial planning, political sciences, STS, ethics, technology assessment and engineering with interest on in interdisciplinary research are invited to present their perspectives and results on this topic.
  • Ethical and Juridical Challenges in RWM
    Both, the political and the scientific debate on RWM are loaded with normative issues. This bisciplinary section is open to papers adressing challenges faced in ethical reflection and juridical enquiry of the legal codifications needed as guidelines storage and disposal.
  • Values and Criteria for RWM Strategy Assessment
    On which base may a strategy for RWM be called safe, secure, or just? Any feasible argument on RWM-strategies relies on both, scientific criteria and normative values that form principles for evaluation and assessment. This section will stress the theoretical foundations of RWM-research in order to scruntinise, define, and revaluate the principles of its ways and findings.
  • Addressing Technical and Societal Risks and Uncertainties
    Nearly every issue of radioactive waste management is closely linked to aspects of risk and uncertainties. This session focusses on the management of these aspects – ranging from the safety of technical systems over radiation protection to uncertainties concerning the societal evolution over the next decades.
  • Research Needs in Technical and Non-Technical Disciplines — How Good is Good Enough?
    The session will collect existing deficits for realization of a disposal strategy, both from the technical viewpoint and concerning procedural challenges. In an open discussion, we will address the question whether one should aim at the best conceivable solution or rather – by a more pragmatic approach – at a solution of “only” adequate safety.
  • Education & Training in RWM: Interdisciplinary and Disciplinary Aspects
    The session covers disciplinary and interdisciplinary education and vocational training of all topics related to nuclear waste disposal. Presentations on interdisciplinary cooperative projects and national programs from spokespersons or representatives of this topic area are highly welcome. The session shall comprise short topical presentations followed by a panel discussion.
  • Geoscientific and Geotechnical Aspects of High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal
    Most nations dealing with the disposal of high-level nuclear waste are aiming for a deep geological repository. The topic is directed at researchers in Geology, Mining and Geotechnics to provide presentations on recent research and scientific results in the field of deep geological disposal.

The sessions are comprising invited and contributed talks, discussion groups and a poster session.

The social programme will comprise a public evening event and a social dinner. There will be opportunity to visit Asse, Morsleben, Konrad, the Bundesanstalt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe (BGR) and the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) on Friday, 29th. Following the international conference there will be a full day event for the public on Saturday, 30th in German language (to be announced).

The deadline for Abstract Submission has been extended until April 15th, 2017!

You may submit more than one contribution; however, the upper limit of three contributions per presenter should not be exceeded.
The book of abstracts will be published. By sending your abstract(s), all authors agree to the publication of their abstract(s) by the organizer.

For preparing your abstract, please use this abstract template. Please note: In case that your abstract contains figures, they must have printing quality i.e. 300 dpi is the minimum resolution.

During the online submission of your abstract(s), you please have to:

  • mark your contribution as poster, as oral contribution or as discussion group;
  • assign your abstract(s) to one of our conference themes/sessions;
  • fill into the forms provided by the online system the following information: name, first name & institution etc. of all authors (co-authors) of your abstract(s).

Please submit your abstract online (300 to 500 words, max. 2 pages, max. 5 MB, best as doc or docx) by following this link