Themes and sessions
Scientific contributions to the conference are welcomed and can be submitted under the following themes for specific sessions. Abstracts can be flagged for several sessions and the sessions might be rearranged depending on the number of submissions and to avoid overlap.
Theme 1: Methodological approaches to understand cross-border climate impacts
The complexity of climate change impacts calls for novel, integrated approaches that can address cascading risks and the cross-border, multi-sectoral nature of climate change impact propagation. This requires knowledge from multiple disciplines and different value perspectives. This theme seeks contributions that provide insights in cascading climate impacts and risk with regard to conceptual frameworks, analyses of policy responses, scenarios and storylines that capture and assess cross-border climate impacts, and modelling approaches to complex dynamics in integrated physical, social and economic systems.
- Session 1: Conceptual frameworks of cross-border and cascading climate impacts/risks
- Identifying and addressing cross-border impacts of climate change requires a common language that is understood by a variety of disciplines and actors. This session seeks contributions that attempt to conceptualize the nature of cross-border and cascading climate impacts and hence offer common terminologies and catalogues.
- Session 2: Scenarios and Storylines to capture cross-border climate impacts
- Scenarios and (event-based) storylines are tools that are increasingly used to integrate the different disciplinary knowledge relevant for capturing cross-border impacts. For this session, we seek contributions on (but not restricted to) protocols for scenario and storyline development, how to expand SSPs, how to make scenarios more relevant for decision making, developments and applications of the storylines approach, how to bridge cross-border physical and societal information and how societal values are embedded in these approaches.
- Session 3: Policy analysis methods for studying cross-border impacts and adaptation
- This session brings together contributions offering and discussing policy frameworks that specifically incorporate cross-border dimensions relevant for policy actors at different spatial scales, including studies assessing the coherence (or lack of it) of different policy domains and at different spatial scales.
- Session 4: Modelling complex dynamics in social/ economic systems
- This session seeks contributions on novel approaches to modelling complex dynamics in social and/or economic systems and their interaction with the physical (climate) environment, e.g. systems approaches; cross/multi/interdisciplinary approaches; integrated assessment modelling.
Theme 2: Cross-border climate impacts and adaptation responses
Physical, economic and socio-political connections between regions and countries influence the transmission of climate impacts across borders. These include connections concerning supply chains, security development-policy, and financial linkages which vary in their magnitude depending on the geopolitical relationships that exist between e.g. nation states. The nature of these connections is fundamental to both the form that a cross-border impact will take (from the perspective of an impact recipient), and the ability (for that recipient) to exert influence to minimise risks. This theme seeks contributions that map changing climatic and socio-economic drivers onto the cause-effect chains, in order to illustrate the implications of climate shocks and evaluate adaptation options for these shocks, from the perspective of real-world examples/case studies.
- Session 5: Trade, supply and value chains
- Complex trade networks and value chains are exposed to climatic disruptions in various subdomains (transportation, production, consumption, pricing, stocks). Analyses frameworks and case studies are welcome that illustrate methods and learning experiences by exposing the climate impacts on the functioning of these chains and networks, and demonstrating effectiveness of coping strategies
- Session 6: Climate-development-security nexus
- Climate risks may weaken the development, stability and resilience of countries with which the EU maintains strategic partnership relations, in the context of internal displacement, shortage of resources, development and humanitarian aid. This session seeks contributions that illustrate targeted climate risk asessments in relation with international cooperation, development and resilience goals.
- Session 7: Climate physical risks and the financial system
- Climate shocks can impact the public and private finance sector in many ways: from governmental support to insurance costs to investment decisions and beyond. This session welcomes studies that showcase climate stress tests of public/private financial systems, together with potential measures to manage the effects of climate effects on financial risk.
- Session 8: Coherence of policy responses to systemic risks
- This session is designed to address the systemic nature of climate change impacts and cross-sectorial risk assessments. The session will discuss the need to take a “systemic” perspective on designing risk management policies and the importance of promoting coherent policies across sectors and scales.
Theme 3: Participatory / stakeholder-driven research to understand and communicate cross-border risks
Relevant research needs solid roots in the ‘real world’. Since cross-border and cascading climate risks affect a wide range of people, it is important for policy makers, the private sector and the general public to understand them, appraise options to manage them, and possibly even co-develop courses of action to strengthen our resilience to them. This theme aims to collect experiences on the role of participatory approaches in communicating research to non-scientific audiences as well as engaging such audiences in crafting recommendations to strengthen research outcomes.
- Session 9: Participatory approaches towards cross-border risks
- This session will gather experiences and ideas on participatory approaches to complex research: what methods of stakeholder engagement are best suited to communicate and research the complexity of cross-border and cascading climate risks, and how can stakeholders be constructively engaged in crafting solutions to manage them?
- Session 10: Communicating complex, cross-border risks to different audiences
- This session will present ideas, tools, methods and studies that inspire effective communication of complex risks and potential solutions: what communication approaches and tactics could researchers deploy to increase understanding of complex risks, craft effective narratives and inspire action to manage them?
Theme 4: Blindspots / Topics not covered above
- Session 11: Open Session (scientific content)
- Session 12: Movies/Games on cascading risks (describe in the abstract field if you want to display any movies/games based on your work and related to the topic of our conference)
