Is an international, multi-discplinary conference in Durham, United Kingdom, 15th and 16th of September 2021. 

 

 

“If we objectively view climate change and the loss of nature as world-wide security threats–as indeed, they are–then we may yet act proportionately and in time.”

 

Sir David Attenborough

 

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the call for a “green recovery”, the new US administration has called climate change an “existential threat”. The World HealthOrganisation has stated that“Climate change is the greatest threat to global health in the 21st Century”. Climate scientistsdiscuss a range of different climate futures, and these arelargelydependent on the level of global ambition for climate action.Acceleratingthe economy-widede carbonisation for climate change mitigation canyield major co-benefits for health, for example by reducing the effects of air pollution on health since in many cases the sources of air pollutants andgreenhouse gases are the same.

 

Is international law equipped to support a sustainable recovery from the current pandemic that promotes public health and healthy ecosystems(including protecting biodiversity) to achieve the climate goal of the Paris Agreement? This multi-disciplinary conference will bring together experts from international law, climate science and epidemiology, to discusssome of the complex linkages between air pollution, climate change, biodiversity loss and human health. These interactions may concern not only the underlying causes of the current public health crisis and the climate crisis, but also the responses to them where co-operation of states is urgently required to work towards achieving common objectives andprotecting global public goods.Science can inform states’ actionand point towards consequences of inaction, by predicting the probable impacts of different decisions but rarely gives a definitive single option for policy-and lawmakers. Scientific models and warnings are important for setting climate targets to mitigate climate change, to adapt to the forecasted impacts of climate change, and to return to a “betternormal” after the COVID-19 pandemic. A sustainable recovery from both crises requires us to strengthen thelegal response that takes the science into account and addresses both emergencies simultaneously and immediately.

 

We are inviting abstracts that advance the understanding of the links between climate change,biodiversity loss and public health risks, and abstracts that explore international law aspects on climate change, biodiversity and public health protection and/or intersect science and law. We anticipate a discussion that broadensthe perspective on climate changeand defines elements of future research, by exploring linkagesbetween climate change, biodiversity loss and public health,in terms of the underlying causes and the global response measures. 

 

This conference is funded by the Society of Legal Scholars.Please submit your abstract via this form by the 28th of May.

 

For academic enquiries, please contact petra.minnerop@durham.ac.uk.

 

For logistical queries, please contact law.researchofficer@durham.ac.uk.

 

Please note that if UK Government regulations prevent a physical event, this event will take place virtually on 15th and 16th September.

 

This event is a collaboration between Durham Law School and the with Centre for International Law (National University of Singapore), Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law & Policy (University of Dundee), Centre on Climate Change and Planetary Health (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), Environmental Change Institute (University of Oxford), Michael E. Moritz College of Law (Ohio State University), and Dundee Law School is inviting abstracts for an international, multi-disciplinary conference.