Beyond 2020: converging crises demand integrated responses

  • PDF / 377,120 Bytes
  • 3 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
  • 31 Downloads / 232 Views

DOWNLOAD

REPORT


NOTE AND COMMENT

Beyond 2020: converging crises demand integrated responses Statement by the RACC International Advisory Committee following the RACC-12 International Forum Jim Falk1,13 · Rita Colwell2,14 · Adel El‑Beltagy3 · Peter Gleick4 · Charles Kennel5 · Yuan T. Lee6 · Amy Luers7 · Cherry Murray8,15 · Ismail Serageldin9 · Kazuhiko Takeuchi10 · Chiho Watanabe11 · Tetsuzo Yasunari12 Received: 9 October 2020 / Accepted: 14 October 2020 © Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature 2020

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates how the impacts of climate change are beginning to converge with other developing challenges with a likely peak with global population, requiring more integrated responses locally, regionally and globally. Keywords  Sustainability challenges · Climate change · COVID-19 · Convergence · Integrated responses

Introduction RACC (Regional Action for Climate Change) has been a program of activity which has focussed on the reality that many of the actions to be taken in adapting to and mitigating climate change must be implemented by local communities. RACC has worked to support getting expert scientific advice to those communities to assist them in formulating responses, and for the last 12 years has reported and further Handled by Osamu Saito, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, Japan. * Jim Falk [email protected] 1

2

3





4



5



6



Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

developed its insights at a forum held in conjunction with the Science, Technology and Society (STS) Forum in Kyoto. In October this year, RACC focussed on the implications for responses to climate change of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic can be seen as an early illustration of the way that a range of critical risk dynamics are beginning to converge with that of climate change. As these develop and interact they will have an increasing impact on human insecurity. The comment by the RACC International Advisory Committee below briefly expands on this and its implications for research and policy implementation. More on the RACC can be found at www.stsfo​rum.org/racc/. 7



Center for Sustainability in the Digital Age, and Future Earth, Montreal, Canada

8



Harvard University, Cambridge, USA

9



The Library of Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt

Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, USA

10

Institute for Global Environmental Strategies and Institute for Future Initiatives, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

International Drylands Development Commission, and Arid Land Agricultural Graduate Studies and Research Institute, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

11

National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba, Japan

12

Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan

13

University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia

14

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA

15

University of Arizona, Tucson, USA

Pacific Institute for Studies in Development,