Climate Change, Power and Poverty Conference
Uppsala, October 14th, 2009
Invitation to Conference

Date: Wednesday 14 October, 2009
Time: 08:30–17:00
Location: Hambergsalen, CSD Uppsala, Geocentrum, Uppsala University, Villavägen
16, Uppsala, Sweden

You are invited to attend a one-day conference at Uppsala University, Sweden on the
interconnections between climate change, power structures and poverty in the world. The
conference is organized by the Development Research Network on Nature, Poverty and
Power (DevNet) at the Uppsala Centre for Sustainable Development, Uppsala University.

Current research on climate change indicates that social transformations are required in order
to face anticipated and urgent social challenges. These transformations should incorporate
approaches not only to science but also to power structures and political formations related
to the persistence and deepening of world poverty. Currently however, much emphasis is put
on the role of market mechanisms with little progress in adopting measures recommended by
the scientific community.

Within this context, acute questions arising today are:

Is the implementation of markets mechanisms what is really needed to address
societies’ responses to climate change?

How do current configurations of asymmetrical social power relationships interplay in
the adoption of agreements to face climate change?

In addressing such questions it is apparent that poverty and global inequalities are key issues
both in relation to future consequences of climate change and the kind of alternatives
discussed within the climate policy agenda today.

This one-day conference in Uppsala, Sweden is expected to be an important part of the
process of discussions that can hopefully lead to better approaches to the multiple dimensions
of climate change. It is important to highlight that this conference will take place in a period in
which Sweden is acting as the European Union chair, two months before the United Nations
Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (7-18 December 2009). The program includes
three keynote speakers in addition to presentations by various Swedish researchers studying
climate change, power and poverty .

Keynote speakers:

Larry Lohmann works with the Corner House, a small research and solidarity organisation
in the UK. He is author of Carbon Trading; co-author of Pulping the South: Industrial Tree
Plantations and the World Paper Economy and Whose Common Future? Reclaiming the Commons;
and co-editor of The Struggle for Land and the fate of the Forests. He has published articles and
book chapters on climate change, land rights, globalisation, racism, forest conflicts,
development, environmental change in Southeast Asia and the politics of cost-benefit analysis.
 

Jimin Zhao is a James Martin 21st Century School Research Fellow at the Environmental
Change Institute from the University of Oxford, UK. She is the lead researcher of the China
Environment and Energy Programme. She has written articles on the energy programme and
transportation in China; and a report on cities, climate change and the role of institutions,
governance and urban planning.
 

Kumi Naidoo is an activist and Rhodes Scholar. Kumi was part of the successful struggle
against apartheid in his native South Africa. For ten years he was the General Secretary and
Chief Executive Officer of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. He sits on the
board of Greenpeace Africa and chairs the Global Campaign for Climate Action (GCCA). He
has recently been appointed as Director General of Greenpeace International.

DevNet Uppsala Committee:
Cristián Alarcón-Ferrari
Matilde Somarriba
Margarita Cuadra

Notification shall be sent to Matilde Somarriba no later than September 21st, 2009.