Download Concept Note on the Event Series "Bonn Dialogues on Global

Concept Note on the Event Series
"Bonn Dialogues on Global Environmental Change"
The second in the “Bonn Dialogue Series” - November 27th, 2007
“Melting Ice, Vanishing Life:
The impacts of environmental change on human society and biodiversity”
Special co-organizer: The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
This event is occurring amidst ample evidence of significant changes and
reductions in snow and ice cover, affecting glaciers, ice sheets, and sea ice.
Some changes, such as in glacial coverage, show clearly decreasing trends over
recent years and even decades. Other changes, for example related to the
Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, remain uncertain in magnitude and direction.
It is increasingly clear that significant changes to these areas of ice and snow
cover, happening mostly due to human activities, have serious and immediate
consequences for terrestrial and marine ecosystems, land use and ocean levels,
and of course the plant life, animals and humans, particularly indigenous
communities, who live directly in these affected high mountain and polar regions.
The recently published Arctic Human Development Report asserts that “Arctic
societies have a well-deserved reputation for resilience in the face of change. But
today they are facing an unprecedented combination of rapid and stressful
changes” involving both environmental forces like climate change and
socioeconomic pressures associated with globalization. Under the
circumstances, it is particularly noteworthy that the “… Arctic has become a
leader in the development of innovative political and legal arrangements,”
including co-management regimes governing the use of natural resources,
collaborative arrangements designed to facilitate cooperation between public
governments and indigenous peoples organizations, and transnational
arrangements like the Northern Forum and the Arctic Council itself.
In addition, the comprehensive Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report takes
an extensive look at climate change already happening in the Arctic, reminding
the reader that these changes will affect the rest of the world due to the special
role the Arctic plays in climate change. Thus the need for decision makers
around the world to be up to date on ongoing changes in the Arctic and global
implications is apparent.
It is increasingly clear that rapid changes in the Arctic and also high mountain
regions are not only affecting local populations, but also impact billions of people
worldwide as they face, for example, severe water shortages as a result of the
alarming melting rate of glaciers. In addition, island states and coastal
communities have a particular need to be concerned about and try to avert
significant sea level rise.
But the impacts of melting ice from glaciers are also clear even here in the city of
Bonn, with a major river flowing through its city that provides an important source
of commerce, tourism, recreation, travel and refuges for important species of
plant and wildlife.
International efforts to understand how these activities affect the earth, such as
the International Polar Year (2007 – 2009) and the Convention on Biodiversity
(meeting in Bonn in 2008), bring together experts to discuss the causes, impacts
and methods of mitigating the loss of ice cover and of biodiversity. In addition,
there are other regional efforts such as the Arctic Council and the growing
influence of its Permanent Participants at the regional level. The tensions
between such international and regional efforts, coupled with the high
significance of this region for the rest of the world, will make it more important
than ever to find mechanisms and bodies which serve to conduct meaningful
research on the progress and impacts of climate change, at the same time
preserving the identity and political coherence of this region.
In this context, this coupled event of a closed expert roundtable during the day
followed by a professionally moderated public debate in the evening seeks to
explore current research, relating it particularly with an explicit link to the city of
Bonn and other European cities.
The open evening part of the Bonn Dialogue event will seek to inform and
engage the interested Bonn public in these issues, and to seek out a dialogue
with various partners.
Background
The German Committee for Disaster Reduction (DKKV), the International Human
Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP) and the United
Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) in
partnership with the City of Bonn and Deutsche Welle broadcasting station will
jointly organize a series of workshops twice a year called "Bonn Dialogues on
Global Environmental Change". The series focuses on substantive issues related
to anthropogenic drivers and consequences of Global Environmental Change
and Human Security. Sector specific themes, such as climate, water, energy, or
food will be addressed in a cross-cutting manner. The topics of these regular
workshops, which would take place every spring and autumn and include both a
closed expert roundtable as well as an open public lecture, will be under the
three overarching themes of vulnerability, adaptation and resilience.
The organizers are networks of scientific research and practitioners, who apply
themselves to the tasks of fostering high quality, interdisciplinary research and
bridging the gap between science, practice and decision makers.
The Dialogue Series will:
• raise public awareness of different aspects of Global Environmental Change;
• serve as a forum for interdisciplinary multi-stakeholder exchanges of views;
• contribute to different scientific, political and public discourses; and
• present Bonn as a host of various organizations dealing with cooperation,
sustainable development and environmental concerns.
While the above-mentioned organizers will represent the core group of “Bonn
Dialogues”, each individual workshop will also be organized jointly with other UN
and International Agencies based in Bonn. Interested Federal Ministries or
United Nations organizations will be invited, possibly taking on the role of coconveners on a rotating basis. Thus, the brand "Bonn Dialogues" is synonymous
with the outstanding and unique opportunity Bonn provides by its concerted
expertise as an UN City and the host of many other international organizations.
In order to attract practitioners and decision makers and to showcase the policy
relevance of the organizer’s field of work, it is foreseen to link each “Bonn
Dialogue” session with an ongoing political process or a so-called “International
Year”. Thus the future of policy relevant and up-to-date “Bonn Dialogue” topics
should be secured.