With funding from the University of Oslo’s UiO:Norden initiative, the Department of Sociology and Human geography is organizing a one-day workshop on Nordic Climate Tipping Points – How to Prepare for a Non-linear Future? on October 11th, 2022.
Over the last two decades, climate tipping points have become subject of a growing research agenda in the climate sciences and an increasingly alarmed media coverage. The risks posed by climate tipping points to human life and social stability are significant and call for political action that goes beyond current climate governance approaches and tools. At the same time, public and policy-maker engagement with tipping points has remained limited, opening a significant knowledge-action gap. Further, tipping point knowledge has been primarily generated in the natural sciences with limited engagement among social scientists, e.g., investigating the multifaceted social impacts, psychological responses, or policy instruments to deal with climate tipping points.
Given this context, this workshop pursues two distinct goals: to initiate stronger interdisciplinary scientific engagement with climate tipping points and to open a science-policy conversation on the tipping elements that will be most relevant to the Nordic region (Arctic Summer Sea Ice, Greenland Ice Sheet, Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, Boreal Forest, Permafrost).
For this purpose, we will bring together world-class tipping-point experts from the natural sciences, social scientists with expertise on climate change and Earth system governance, and policy makers from the Nordic region.
Registration
Participation is by invitation only. Please contact Manjana Milkoreit (manjana.milkoreit@sosgeo.uio.no) if you are interested in attending.
Links
Switzerland proposes an IPCC Special Report on Tipping Points
US National Academies Workshop on Tipping Points, Cascading Impacts, and Interacting Risks in the Earth System
Environmental Research Letters Focus Issue on Earth System Resilience and Tipping Behavior