The event, Climate Change: Negotiations, Actions and Movements, bought together students and academics with people from across the community, and public and private organisations, including local dignitaries and representatives from diplomatic missions.

The event aims to increase the knowledge and understanding of the threats of climate change, the experiences of its impacts, the role of the UN, and of existing initiatives that aim to reduce the impact of climate change.

Delegates were able to take part in three different activities:

• A mock UN debate on climate change involved participants role-playing officials and other groups, as if at an international climate summit.  It used software deployed by official UN climate change negotiators to generate real time impacts of carbon targets on the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, temperature and sea level.
• Parallel workshops, chaired by the University’s academic experts, focused on key issues and initiatives within journalism, life science, construction and performance.
• Young people involved in developing youth leadership on climate action shared their work and the opportunities for collaboration in a debate chaired by the University’s Vice Chancellor Bill Rammell.

The event’s organiser, Dr Diana Pritchard from the University’s Centre for Learning Excellence, and the Sustainability Forum said: “The catastrophes wreaked by recent hurricanes on the Caribbean basin are further evidence of the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, as predicted by scientists of climate chaos.  Yet research has shown that merely presenting people with research on the trends and trajectories of climate changes does not generate action on climate change.

“What are urgently needed are approaches to learning that serve to motivate individuals to get involved in actions which enable societies to reduce, mitigate and adapt to the projected climate change impacts.”

The event reflected collaborative design and organisation, involving the University’s Centre for Learning Excellence, and the Sustainability Forum and included academics from a spectrum of disciplines, and inputs from the United Nations Association.