Headline: RIFS Blog September 2022

2018 marked the dawn of a new age of youth activism in Europe. Climate justice and the question of intergenerational justice are now taking centrestage. The slogans associated with the Fridays for Future movement capture the existential crisis of contemporary youth, triggered by the vision of “stolen futures” and the burdens they will almost certainly have to shoulder tomorrow if effective climate policies are not adopted in the present.

In mid-September, the first interdisciplinary Global Tipping Point Conference was held at the University of Exeter/ UK in collaboration with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Franziska Mey reports on the conference.

Women are underrepresented in the energy sector. Globally, women hold around one fifth of the jobs in the oil and gas industry and less than a third of the jobs in the renewable energy sector. This blog post examines the prospects for change in South Africa.

The challenge of communicating on climate change in a world wracked by crises was the focus of the “K3 Congress on Climate Communication” held in Zurich earlier this month. The congress was attended by around 400 media professionals and representatives from NGOs, government agencies, public administration, political parties, and academia from German-speaking countries. The latest climate science and trends in climate communication were analyzed, discussed, and reflected upon in keynote speeches, debates, workshops, performances and films at the two-day event.

As governments across the world decarbonize their economies, the shift toward clean energy is highlighting new geopolitical tensions, supply chain vulnerabilities, and sustainability challenges associated with raw material extraction. With electrification as the main pathway to achieving decarbonization, one key technology—the battery—plays an outsize role in this shift. As the lithium-ion battery is currently the dominant technology for electric vehicles and stationary energy storage, exponential growth in critical mineral mining is required to meet demand. The International Energy Agency projects that the metals industry would need to build 50 new lithium mines, 60 nickel mines, and 17 cobalt mines by 2030 to meet global demand in line with national emissions-reduction pledges.

A visit to the ACHEMA 2022 trade fair for process industries has strengthened my conviction that dialogue between the business sector, science, politics and society will be crucial to achieving our climate goals.

A survey by IASS researchers aims to find out more about the ongoing impact of the pandemic on stakeholder engagement in sustainability research.