Eurasian Environments: Climate Justice and Sustainability in Global Context

All events will be released as a podcast series on The Eurasian Knot

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently predicted that global average temperatures will rise 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels in the mid-2030s. Over the last decades, a global network of scholars, policy makers, activists, and others have organized to offer ways to mitigate and even reverse the effects of climate change. What offramps can these solutions and movements offer our collective humanity?

“Eurasian Environments” seeks to provide some reflections to mark the UN’s 2024 Climate Change Conference in Baku, Azerbaijan. This series will examine social justice and sustainability efforts to address climate change by putting scholars of Eurasia in conversation with their peers specializing on Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. The series will comprise six events that will illuminate the challenges and possible solutions to climate change in Eurasia in regional and global contexts.

Fall 2024

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2024
Eurasian Environments in Global Context (curated with Global Studies)
3:00-4:30 pm EST (ONLINE)
A LIVE INTERVIEW WITH Eve Darian Smith, UC Irvine AND Boris Schneider, Eurasian Climate Brief podcast

Twin crises confront our world: climate change and authoritarianism. For the former, it comes with volatile weather, wildfires, floods, and draught. The latter, the erosion of liberal democracy, unchecked resource extraction, and climate denial. Together they reinforce each other. Anti-democratic governments eliminate environmental protections, hobble climate science, and repress climate activism. The impact of climate change inflames xenophobia, racism, and nationalism. How does this dynamic play in Eurasia? This event brings together two experts, Eve Darian Smith (UC Irvine) and Boris Schneider (Eurasian Climate Brief podcast), to discuss the global and regional interplay between anti-democratic states and movements and what they mean for addressing climate change.

Register for the event

Spring 2025

All events will be held in Posvar 4130. 1:00-2:30 pm, EST

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2025
Wild Weather, Mass Migration (curated with African Studies)
1:00 - 2:30 EST
A LIVE INTERVIEW WITH Sarah Cameron, University of Maryland AND Edna Wangui, Ohio University

 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2025
Kicking the Hydrocarbon Habit (curated with Asian Studies)
1:00 - 2:30 EST
A LIVE INTERVIEW WITH Pawel Czyzak, Regional Lead at Ember AND Zhaojin Zeng, Texas A&M University

 

THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 2025
To Govern What We Eat (curated with European Studies)
1:00 - 2:30 EST
A LIVE INTERVIEW WITH Natalia Mamonova, Institute for Rural and Regional Research AND Susanne Wengle, Uppsala University

 

THURSDAY MARCH 27, 2025
Front-Line Issues: War, Climate, and Refugees (curated with Global Studies)
1:00 - 2:30 EST
ALIVE INTERVIEW WITH Daniel Briggs, Northumbria University AND Lauren Herzer Risi, Wilson Center

 

THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 2025
Green Cities for the Future (curated with Latin American Studies)
1:00-2:30 EST

A LIVE INTERVIEW WITH Maria C Taylor, Cornell AND Roberta Mendonca de Carvalho, University of Pittsburgh

Co-Sponsors

Center for Latin American Studies

European Studies Center

Center for African Studies

Global Studies Center

Asian Studies Center