The Wales Environmental Leadership Conference

 

Directions/Accommodation

https://www.thetrainline.com/buytickets/

http://www.aber.ac.uk/en/maps-travel/

Programme

Contact us:

Hannah Hughes:  hrh08@aber.ac.uk

Website:

http://environmentalpoliticsresearchgroup.wordpress.com/

Can Wales become an international environmental leader? How can academic, policy and NGO communities work together in creating and sustaining an environmentally sound Wales? How can our research support and facilitate Wales as a global environmental knowledge producer and political actor?

Calling all Aberystwyth University researchers interested in and studying the environment and environmental politics locally, nationally and internationally: The Wales environmental leadership conference seeks to bring researchers across the disciplines together in order to evaluate Wales’ position in international politics and to create linkages relevant to strengthening its leadership role.

Abstract deadline: 21st December 2012

WALES AS AN INTERNATIONAL ENVIORNMENTAL LEADER: CREATING AND PRACTICING A SHARED VISION

Wales is claiming a stake in the international political response to climate change, biodiversity loss and more broadly in the global transition towards sustainable patterns of development. As with all actors in global environmental politics, its power to speak meaningfully in this arena depends upon the sustainable future it builds here in Wales. The policies created and practices generated to care for the people and the environment of Wales will determine the extent to which Wales can be identified as an international environmental leader.

The aim of this conference is to evaluate Wales’ place in international environmental politics and to identify how, through its environmental practices, Wales can strengthen its leadership role in the global response to shared environmental problems. Achieving this requires bringing together all those with a stake in building a sustainable Wales: from those representing Wales internationally to the community actors integrating, implementing and living environmental action. Research and researchers can serve as a vital conduit between these communities, enabling the realisation of a shared, environmentally sound future. However, to act as such, universities, research groups and individual academics need to build on relations within and between these different levels of action, and ascertain the extent to which research is relevant and can contribute to building a sustainable Wales. This conference will bring representatives from political, activist and scholarly communities together, strengthening relations vital for the practice of Wales as a global environmental actor.

PANELS: NATIONAL ACTION AND INTERNATIONAL LEADERSHIP

We are seeking abstracts for two panels. The first panel will draw together relevant research to discuss Wales’ role in international environmental politics and to identify the actions necessary for strengthening Wales’ position as a global knowledge producer and political actor. It aims to draw on research perspectives focused on Wales and equally on perspectives relevant to strengthening Wales’ leadership in knowledge production and political action.

The second panel will address the local and national environmental policy practices enabling Wales to be identified as an international environmental leader. This panel seeks to draw together research on local and national environmental policy practices, and to initiate discussion on the possibilities and barriers to generating and implementing environmental policy at multiple levels of government. It is also aims to draw on research into community action and support that can facilitate understanding of how to move towards the creation of a sustainable Wales.

Please send a 300 word abstract for a paper by the 21st of December 2012 to Hannah Hughes at hrh08@aber.ac.uk.

This conference is co-convened by the Environmental Politics Research Group and the Institute of Welsh Politics with support from the International Politics Department and the Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University.