Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability

May 1 (Thursday) at 10 am ET    Register

Building infrastructures for a socially just mitigation of climate change

Abstract: The title of this talk is predicated on two assumptions: that society should strive to mitigate the human drivers of climate change, and that there is value in doing this in ways that might be considered socially just. Each of these is clearly a contested assumption, but for the purpose of this talk I am going to take the first as given and will outline an argument for why the second is strategically sensible (as well as normatively desirable). I will then elaborate that argument with a focus on two mitigation pathways: that related to the protection of standing primary forest, especially in humid tropical environments; and that related to the transition to low carbon energy systems. As I build the argument, I will also be describing how the Natural Resources and Climate Justice program at Ford Foundation has sought to understand viable pathways for mitigating climate change and its own role in contributing to those pathways. As we develop this role, we do so recognizing that: (i) our options are structured by our prior work (path dependence in philanthropy); and (ii) we are an insignificant actor in relation to the challenge at hand and even in relation to other larger climate philanthropies. Within those constraints, the program understands its contributions as hinging around the support to a broad, largely civil society based, infrastructure that will need to exist, persist and strengthen over time. This is not to say that this civic climate infrastructure is all that is needed – it is not sufficient, but it is necessary. The talk wraps up with a reflection on what elements of this civic infrastructure might look like and reflects on the place of universities within this infrastructure.

Dr. Tony Bebbington is International Program Director for Natural Resources and Climate Change at the Ford Foundation and Higgins Professor of Environment and Society at Clark University, USA (where he is currently on leave). He is also Board Chair of the Climate and Land Use Alliance, was Chair of the Steering Group of the Trust, Accountability and Inclusion collaborative, and board member of Oxfam America. Previously he served as Director of the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University, Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne, and Professor of Management in International Development at the University of Manchester. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has also held positions at the World Bank, Overseas Development Institute and International Institute for Environment and Development. Tony has done most of his own work in Latin America, with a focus on environmental governance, extractive industries, smallholder agriculture, social movements and non-governmental organizations.

Web pages:
https://www.fordfoundation.org/about/people/anthony-bebbington/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Bebbington
https://www.clarku.edu/faculty/profiles/anthony-bebbington/