Climate Futures Workshop 2022

Theme: The workshop asks: How can we understand the opportunities and challenges in facilitating just and effective climate policy implementation in a multilevel or polycentric governance system, with overlapping jurisdictions and different kinds of sovereignty. Questions might include (but are not limited to):  

• How do interactions between different levels of governance affect responses to climate change? How can these interactions be improved? For example, to what extent is harmonization across levels necessary or desirable?
• How should levels of expertise and priorities interact when guiding climate solutions? For example, can subsidiarity (the idea that governance should take place as close as possible to the citizen) be reconciled with the need for global action?
• What challenges and opportunities arise if climate change governance is performed by a variety of actors, such as those governing monetary policy, trade, labor, and industrial policy?  
• How do different levels of governance promote or inhibit a just transition? For example, should resource transfers go to regions with the most effective mitigation potential, or those with the most need?
• How should climate change and our responses reshape future governance? For example, will the concept of state-based citizenship need to be re-evaluated?
• What reforms could raise the tangible implementation of lofty pledges? Can sub-national initiatives substitute for national inaction?

Form of the workshop:  Presentations for the conference can either be a 15-20 minute video or 2,500-3,500 word text. Presentations (text or video) will be hosted on a members-only website, and discussion of presentations will unfold asynchronously in an online forum on that website. Those able to view and comment on the presentations will be other presenters and select guests invited at the request of authors or organisers. We will also have opportunities for synchronous round-table discussions, scheduled to include a range of time zones.

[More details at the website.]