The urgency of the climate crisis calls for new ways to value and respect our planet – but also each other. Our relationships could well be the key to our resilience, and our very survivability. Sincerely valuing the contribution of indigenous peoples as custodians of our history and our land, means valuing their relationship to country, and authentically collaborating with others across sectors to protect and conserve our planet. This includes our farmers, as custodians of our food systems as they attempt to produce more, with less, all over the world.
 
In this opening sequence, CEO of Plan International and ACFID Board member Susanne Legena will guide Dr Anika Molesworth, Founding Director of Farmers for Climate Action in conversation with Traditional Owner from Wuthati Cape York Country and Deputy Chair of the Cape York Protected Area Management Committee Chrissy Warren.  Join us to learn from their knowledge and wisdom, and be inspired by their hope and optimism for the future as we all strive towards the same goal - safeguarding the best possible health and nourishment for our planet, our communities, and ourselves.  

The COVID-19 pandemic created social and economic shocks in the Pacific region and the ongoing recovery is not uniform. Countries across the region have responded in different ways, and have different capabilities and economic and financial resources.  Climate change and climate-related disasters will continue to impact on Pacific governments' ability to invest in public services. Earlier this year, the Pacific Islands Forum held a Regional Debt Conference between Forum Island Countries (FICs) and their Creditors to discuss and explore options for debt relief.

This panel will discuss the economic debt challenges facing Pacific nations, debt sustainability and risks, and policy responses and mechanisms – and how these shape the region’s development outcomes. It will explore the choices available to governments and the roles of different international actors such as multilateral development banks and bilateral development cooperation agencies. 

1. The role of local leadership and engagement of civil society in building resilience for food security.  

2. The importance of investing in social protection and safety nets for those affected by food affordability and insecurity, particularly women and girls, and marginalized and vulnerable groups, including people with disabilities, children, and displaced communities. 

3. Climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction, anticipatory action, and peacebuilding initiatives that will strengthen resilience. This will include the presentation of results from community-level research on how the accelerating impacts of climate change are increasing the risk of conflict, particularly via impacts on food systems and how these dynamics are informing approaches to food security programming.  

4. How to work with global partners to improve and maintain global supply chains, manage rising inflation costs and international collaboration on food production/availability. 

As the nature, scale and frequency of climate induced disasters in our region continues to increase, the humanitarian relief need is ever growing. In this context, rapid deployment of responders and their accountability to affected populations has never been more important. PSEAH continues to be a defining issue for development and humanitarian response, challenging our organisations to stand-up rapid, effective relief efforts, yet demanding the simultaneous centrality of the protection of those most vulnerable to sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment. As we revisit the progress our sector has made to date on advancing our work in PSEAH, we will also explore the opportunities before us to realise and amplify local response mechanisms, engage meaningfully with accessible complaints handling, and embed risk safeguards into our activities on the ground. This session will explore these themes, encompassing the views and roles of Government, ACFID members and in-country partners, and sharing the work of the ACFID Safeguarding Community of Practice in supporting the development of community-based complaints handling mechanisms.

Delegates will gain an insight into the perspectives of Pacific partners who are working in local as PSEAH focal points, understand the work of an ACFID member and hear the perspectives and priorities of Government in this space. Further, they will be able to engage on the work of ACFID’s safeguarding Community of Practice and become aware of the resources available to their organisations to further advance their own work on this issue. They will also have the opportunity to ask questions of the panel, and understand PSEAH issues that are important to their work.

Addressing climate change and its impacts requires cooperation between nations, however traditional approaches to foreign policy which take a zero-sum game mindset have proven inadequate to meeting this challenge.

Foreign policy and feminism both share a common focus on understanding how power operates. Where they differ, is that realist foreign policy approaches ask mostly power amassing questions—seeking to understand how we accrue power for ourselves, and contain the power of others. A feminist approach asks different kinds of questions which can move us beyond zero sum conceptions of power in search of win-win solutions – the kinds of solutions we need if we are to address the climate crisis and implement just transitions on a global scale!

In this session you will hear from a panel of feminist climate experts building on a paper published through the Australian Feminist Foreign Policy Coalition Issues Paper Series, Feminist Perspectives on Climate Diplomacy.

Speakers will provide a feminist analysis of the impacts and solutions to climate change, including the way that feminist approaches can expand the types of knowledge and solutions that are seen as valid in ways that re-centre the knowledge and world views of First Nations, women and other marginalised communities. The session will also speak to the interconnections between feminist approaches and First Nations Foreign Policy, and the practical steps Australia can take to operationalise these approaches through its international climate diplomacy, building on the work of the Australian Feminist Foreign Policy Coalition.

Climate change and environmental stress are increasingly being described as a ‘threat-multiplier’ resulting in increased violent conflict, migration, under-development and inequality. The impacts of climate change in the Pacific and South East Asian regions have been widely discussed. Emerging within this conversation are concerns regarding the nexus between climate change and conflict. In this panel we will bring together a group of peacebuilding practitioners and scholars who are working on a range of research and practice projects which concern the links between climate and environmental change and conflict. The session will share lessons from this emerging work about the need for conflict prevention and to ensure responses to climate change carried out by community, governmental, and international organisations are conflict-sensitive.

1.     An understanding of the relationship between climate change impacts in Australia’s nearest regions and conflict drivers which inhibit development and drive inequality and violence

2.     An understanding of the ways in which climate change interventions themselves (e.g. climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction) can also inadvertently feed into local conflict systems, in some cases leading to the failure of these interventions

3.     An appreciation of the importance of ‘do no harm’ thinking in responding to climate change, particularly at community level.

We will draw upon case studies collected by two organisations CDA Collaborative and Conciliation Resources. This will be supported by evidence collected by the Initiative for Peacebuilding at Melbourne University on conflict-sensitivity. These organisations are working globally and in the region.

Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) play a critical role in linking community perspectives to regional and global actors and strengthening the system that supports community resilience towards climate change. In Australia, NGOs working in the international development sector recognise the need to integrate climate change considerations more effectively across their programs. The Climate Action Framework by Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) has been supporting the ACFID members to increase action on climate change and provide clearer entry points for organisations to start or step-up climate change integration into their programs. However, many NGOs within the sector need further support and more detailed guidance to ensure climate change does not undermine or reverse development progress. 

On the other hand, many NGOs are already innovating, adapting and responding to climate change in various ways. The workshop will bring together leading NGOs working in climate action and international development space to share insights on best practice and enablers of best practice towards climate change integration. The learning from the workshop will inform the participating delegates to develop a shared understanding of current best practice for climate change integration and prioritise climate change integration in their organisations’ programming through tried and tested ways.  

Delegates will:

For charities working internationally, transferring funds overseas can often be a significant source of financial wastage, fraught with fees and opaque costs not obvious at times. But it can also be an opportunity to become more effective in their use of resources and minimize their financial wastage. Join Michael Stachowiak, Head of AU&NZ StoneX Global Payments as he uncovers the hidden costs of transferring funds overseas to help charities minimise their financial wastage and maximise the impact of their donor funds.

Sea-grapes (Caulerpa lentillifera) are a nutritious, high-value species of edible seaweed popular across the Pacific. Successful cultivation of sea-grapes depend on healthy marine and coastal ecosystems, making nature-based approaches to sea-grape management critical for achieving both environmental and social development outcomes.  

WWF-Solomon Islands will present a case study sharing lessons from their past decade of community-based natural resource management and sustainable livelihoods work with Saeragi Village in Gizo, Solomon Islands. The session will demonstrate the value of and practical approaches to, taking a nature-based approach to local sustainable development.  

The session will start from the premise that natural assets are invaluable for communities in PICs, and that development organisations can used nature-based solutions to empower communities to protect, value and tangibly benefit from sustainable management of their natural resources.  

The case study of focus for this session will demonstrate how a decade of support for community-led resource management in combination with development of nature-positive livelihoods, resulted in community advocacy for and protection of their natural resources. Key to this result was the collection of monitoring data demonstrating economic benefits of the livelihood activities at the household and community level. This data provided compelling evidence and was used by the community to successfully advocate against logging of the catchment adjacent to where they harvested sea-grapes.  

The session will showcase how this monitoring data for a women’s-based fishery was used by the community to advocate against logging in their catchment that would have put their sustainable fishery for sea-grapes at risk

This session will share evidence of our community led implementation work over the last four years across five watersheds on three islands of Fiji. 

Participants will hear practical insights from the project team covering

1.     How watersheds, as a geographic boundary, are effective for planetary health program design that captures connected anthropogenic and ecosystem activities from ridge to reef.

2.     Successful tools for engaging 29 individual communities via free and informed participatory approaches.

3.     Novel processes and material for community education around risk factors for human health (typhoid, leptospirosis and dengue fever) and the environmental risk (deforestation, riparian zone damage, livestock management and coral reef health). 

4.     Evidence from successful water safety and sanitation activities undertaken using an expanded custom format that captures a wide range of anthropogenic activities that carry risk in the watershed. 

5.     Considerations for implementation activities that are more resilient to the impacts of future climate change impacts (increased flooding and cyclone intensity) on the watersheds and communities.

6.     Implementation of community and watershed level risk reducing interventions that are sustainable and based on natural solutions.

After this session delegates will hopefully be inspired by our evidence of implementation activities that simultaneously protect both the environment and human health.  

Water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) access is essential to climate adaptation and creating healthy and equitable communities. It is important to prioritise rights to WASH in broader water resource management (WRM) to increase the climate resilience of communities, especially those that are marginalised and often excluded from decision making. Water systems globally are also under increasing pressure from climate change, and diversification of water resources is essential for communities to be more resilient to climate change. 

This session will include a discussion and presentation of three case studies demonstrating WaterAid’s work on integrating WASH into broader WRM across Cambodia, Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea. The presentation will discuss practical approaches to encourage cross-sectoral dialogue between the WASH and WRM sectors, increasing gender and social inclusion, as well as approaches to strengthen climate and water resources data management. 

The audience will be able to takeaway important learnings and insights into strategies used to address some of the main challenges in the water sector across Southeast Asia and the Pacific, as well as an understanding of why rights to WASH must be prioritised in WRM. The presentation will include key takeaways and recommendations for WASH practitioners wishing to engage with WRM actors to increase the climate resilience of the communities they work in. The participants will also receive interactive opportunities to engage with the content and each other, as well as share their own experiences of work in similar contexts. 

Climate change, Covid-19 and the global food crisis are threatening the world’s progress out of poverty. There is a growing consensus that international aid programs working on economic development need to promote and environmental and climate change outcomes. But how can we balance these in practice? 

Agriculture is key to inclusive economic growth and a future where a healthy planet and healthy people not only survive but thrive.  An estimated 80% of the global poor rely on agriculture for their incomes. Meanwhile, about 80 percent of the world’s food is produced by small-scale farming. Women make up on average 40% of this agricultural labour in developing countries.  Around the world, farmers are facing increasing climate shocks, like drought, storms, and flooding. Food and agriculture systems are also contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. 

How can we achieve economic growth inclusive of poor and vulnerable groups in the agriculture sector, while also promoting climate resilient outcomes? Against the broader backdrop of the agricultural value chain development and market systems development (MSD) approaches, how can civil society partner with the private sector to promote climate-smart business models, which can achieve commercial, pro-poor, and environmental outcomes? What are some of the trade-offs and challenges when working to achieve these different outcomes?

This session will present the findings from World Vision Australia’s external and internal literature review on how to promote agriculture market systems that are inclusive of the poor, especially women, while also promoting environment and climate outcomes. A case study will be shared from the Australian NGO Cooperation (ANCP) projects.

Building a sustainable future entails harnessing the knowledge, skills and leadership of women with disabilities in climate action. This session will bring the voices and ideas of Pacific women with disabilities into the conversation on climate action, with a focus on the importance of building inclusive climate action and diverse local leadership to develop and implement indigenous ideas to combat the impacts of climate change and implement inclusive disaster risk reduction strategies. From the research recently conducted by PDF in Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Kiribati, the speakers will discuss the impacts of climate change and natural disasters on the rights of women and girls with disabilities in the Pacific region, including the compound effects of gender and disability discrimination leading to higher risk of violence and other human rights abuses. They will also discuss the vital needs for and challenges they face in advocating for disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction and climate action policies and programs.

Come join us in an interactive session to dive into a project that empowers adolescents as a force for change, building their skills for creative problem solving. Creatable is the first project of its kind in Burundi to apply the innovative approach of teaching STEM and creativity as a means of solving real-world problems that Burundian adolescents face here and into the future, which include, with increasing urgency, climate change issues. 

Creatable Burundi is delivered by UNICEF and the Burundian Ministry of National Education and Scientific Research (MENRS) as an extra-curricular activity in schools. It uses a localised approach and contextualised curriculum with a gender transformative outlook, built globally by UNICEF Australia partner The Finch Company. 

The curriculum consists of 4 modules focused on 1) Creativity; 2) Building a Rocket Stove; 3) Building a Solar Still; and 4) Sustainable Agriculture & Innovative Farming. The rocket stove module in particular arose as an innovative solution to an issue that Burundian adolescents identified as affecting the health of communities and of the planet. The module was developed to reduce the environmental impact that communities were having, and also taught adolescents to think about ways of building climate resilience. And early results are starting to show how working with adolescents in this way is already having a positive impact on the local environment in the short term, while equipping adolescents with skills and knowledge to lead change into the future.

This session will include interviews from students who’ve gone through the program, UNICEF Burundi and the MENRS, and a virtual creativity workshop for participants run by the Finch Company.

Women With Disabilities are disproportionately impacted by climate and related crises and often not meaningfully included in policy and practice in relation to Climate resilience. ActionAid Australia has been working in partnership with ActionAid Vanuatu to support the leadership and organizing of Ni-Vanuatu women with disability from the Women I TokTok Tugeta Forum (WITTT) Sunshine platform and Vanuatu Disabled Peoples Advocacy Organization (VDPA).  WITTT Sunshine and VDPA will share real experiences on the leadership and agency highlighting the barriers and opportunities to influence inclusive action. They will be sharing experiences their real life experience both personal and organizational. The team will be joined by Ginette Morrison, The National Disability Coordinator, who will share insights on what the government is doing to promote gender responsive disability inclusion. The three panellists will illustrate the importance of Women Leadership and localization on the Climate Change and Humanitarian Action. 

There is growing consensus that climate change is impacting the number, frequency and duration of natural hazards, such as floods, droughts and cyclones. Rural households, living close to the poverty line, are particularly vulnerable to climate related shocks. This session will explore how access to finance, can promote climate resilience amongst people living in poverty and other vulnerable groups. It will examine key questions such as:                                                                                             

What is the role of finance before, during and after disasters, particularly savings groups, loans (‘recovery lending’) and financial literacy?

How can access to finance contribute to climate resilience and inclusion outcomes, while also promoting equity, gender inclusion and women’s economic empowerment (WEE) outcomes?  

The session will draw on practical case studies from Sri Lanka and Indonesia under the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP). 

In Sri Lanka, research was conducted after significant flooding on Effectiveness of Savings for Transformation (S4T) and Producer Groups (PGs) in Economic Engagement and Resilience to Natural Disasters as part of the Gender and Disability Inclusive Economic Development Project (iLIVE) in Eastern and Northern Provinces. 

Specific lessons will be shared on the engagement of men – as key partners of women savings groups members via Equimondo’s Journey of Transformation model. In Indonesia, the MORINGA project implemented Gender Inclusive Financial literacy Training (GIFT) for couples in partnership with credit unions in eastern Indonesia, as part of the project’s inclusive market systems development (iMSD) approach.  Specific lessons will be shared on mainstreaming climate considerations into the GIFT implementation.  

One of Labor's pre-election policy promises was to have a first nations-led foreign policy. Over the past five months, there has been increasing chatter about this phrase. But what exactly is it? A few academics around Australia have started working on what this could look like; among them, ANU Ph.D. candidate James Blackwell. ACFID's media advisor Aarti Betigeri sits down with James to find out more about how a First Nations foreign policy could look like and what practical activities could flow from it. 

Gender Equality, Disability & Social Inclusion (GEDSI) has become the acronym of choice to refer to marginalised and vulnerable groups. Previous iterations have included gender without equality, social inclusion without disability, while other versions lose social inclusion all together. Following trends in best practice, this session will highlight how language and terms that are used to describe work in support of gender equality and disability inclusion are subjective, political, and have real world implications. This is particularly pertinent for those working at the forefront of development programming, in the gender and disability space. This session will bring together gender adviser, disability advisers, and GEDSI advisers from Australia and the Pacific in a provoking discussion of strengths and challenges of the GEDSI approach, disrupting the widespread assumption that these areas form a ‘natural’ pairing.  Our experience as GEDSI advisers has demonstrated that despite the comfortable semantic pairing of these terms, GEDSI does not happen automatically and requires active effort if interventions are to be meaningful to the communities the terms represent. This session will be in the form of a conversation to be facilitated by World Vision Australia who are taking an active approach to comprehensively, respectfully and equitably bring GEDSI together. 

This session will question the assumptions, pressure and complexity involved in bringing gender equality, disability and social inclusion together and consider how we avoid compromising an in-depth approach to gender, disability and social inclusion when we bring these different areas together. Delegates will gain a deeper understanding of the practical implications of implementing GEDSI approaches across development programming, including social norm change, economic development, risk management, structural change and enabling environments. GEDSI practitioners are very often responsible for ensuring equity and inclusion within their organisations and programs and panellists will offer insight in to the complexities and requirements of effectively merging GEDSI. As a cross-cutting issue, this session will be relevant to all delegates, regardless of technical area or expertise, as GEDSI is incorporated across climate action, disaster risk reduction, climate resilience and funding, and is a prime focus in policy discussions. The discussion will use examples of successful GEDSI mainstreaming within climate adaptation programs, offering important insight and practical advice on steps to impactful GEDSI.

While it is recognized that market systems are a source of resilience for households and communities, there remains a gap in how to interpret the intersection between market systems approaches (including emerging thinking around market systems resilience) and household resilience. This question of how to more fully integrate or improve complementarity between household and market system resilience has emerged as critically important as both areas of interest have realized the interdependency. 

Market system resilience is highly dependent on increasing inclusivity and social equity as research is clarifying how inequality leads to market upheavals/uncertainty and even substantial economic downturns.

This session will consider the interdependence and interconnectivity between healthy communities and resilient market systems in the context of lessons learned from a recent market systems resilience assessment in Nepal.  

Hosted by the Vikāra Institute – this session will share practical insights and actionable examples for evidence based programming. Panelists from Vikāra have deep working experience in MSD/MSR programming approaches working towards proactive measures addressed at inclusive climate action. 

In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, addressing poverty and other disadvantages go hand in hand with strategies to improve health, education and livelihoods, all while tackling climate change and preserving our planet. Sustainable Development is also conducive to achieving other green-related agreements such as the Paris Agreement on climate change. To build a better world and achieve these goals, we need to work together.

The importance of international co-operation is emphasised in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically in Goal 17: ‘Partnerships for the Goals’. Goal 17 sets out three modalities of international development co-operation: North-South, South-South and triangular co-operation. Triangular co-operation is a modality involving at least three partners, a facilitator, a pivotal and a beneficiary partner, and emphasises knowledge sharing while promoting innovation, co-creation of solutions, mutual learning and benefits for all partners engaged. Within the global landscape of development co-operation, we are seeing shifts towards more inclusive and “horizontal partnerships”. Triangular cooperation presents a promising approach to achieve these co-operation ideals and is increasingly advocated as a modality to tackle climate change and deliver the SDGs. 

Globally there is growing appetite and evidence for this way of working together to achieve sustainable development outcomes. Examples from across the world show that triangular activities can deliver green ‘green’ objectives (e.g. on climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, biodiversity, desertification, and local environmental issues) in innovative, flexible and cost-effective ways within and across regions – and thus could help accelerate implementation of the SDGs and other international green agreements. Most recently in early October 2022, the OECD International Meeting on Triangular Co-operation in Lisbon (Portugual) brought together experts, practitioners, and researchers from across the globe to unpack how the modality of triangular cooperation can be better linked and utilised to achieve climate change objectives. 

In this session, we will present case-studies to showcase how triangular co-operation arrangements have been used in the Pacific and other parts of the world to support the climate change agenda. We will then share insights from our participation at the recent OECD International Meeting on Triangular Co-operation. Following that, an interactive discussion will be facilitated whereby session delegates will contextualise these and other considerations for the applicability of the triangular modality to the Australian international development context.

As the current state of the world continues to trend towards instability, the vital importance of effecting change in the way in which we understand our environment and thereby our responsibility as a community requires a reimagining of possibilities. 

Communal responses are required to global challenges, such as the pandemic, and for

this to take effect, there needs to be a local response; one in which emerging leaders can have a say for the betterment of society. In regard to the conference theme, this will be explored, as well as the research and sustainable outcomes that can be considered for current and future generations, in light of the current changes occurring across the country and the planet as we know it

Delegates will be able to identify pathways forward within their communities to implement

changes locally, as well as partnering with young and emerging professionals to foster a deeper understanding of the ripple effects that adopting best practices can bring about for long-term changes, especially from an ecological standpoint.

This session presents the findings of an empirical survey co-designed and conducted by Papua New Guinean researchers in 2021. The PNG Voices research project asked 536 ordinary Papua New Guineans, originating in 21 of PNG’s provinces, how they view their own society, their hopes for the future and their views of Australia and Australians in PNG.  The research found that PNG’s cultural and linguistic diversity, as well as biodiversity, were identified as major strengths of the country. Holding true to Papua New Guinean values whilst continuing to develop economically emerged as a key concern and hope for the future. Many respondents to the survey affirmed the desire for self-reliance and development in what they identified as a particularly ‘Papua New Guinean way. 

The session will present key messages and findings from the research and strategies for co-designing research in PNG that builds on existing research capacity and includes a wide range of Papua New Guineans. The findings offer practical insights into how international actors in PNG can work to address existing asymmetries and create more resilient relationships to action development initiatives the PNG way – building capacity in both directions. 

The presentation will be followed by a moderated panel discussion on the key theme of re-thinking development and capacity building in PNG through ‘deep listening’ that respects local knowledges, skills, and expertise. Integrating PNG norms, values, and insights into the development process implicitly identifies capacity building as a ‘two-way’ street for international actors intending to work in PNG or currently doing so. A virtual white board will be used to collect the discussion and offer a tangible resource of the discussion to delegates. 

“Our world has never been more threatened or more divided.  We face the greatest cascade of crises in our lifetimes.”  Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General, Address to the 76th Session of the UNGA 21 September 202, New York.

Real-world challenges like climate change, Covid-19 and conflict are mounting pressures and increasing global humanitarians needs.  The humanitarian system and diverse entities that engage with the system and endeavor to deliver assistance and protection are facing new challenges and opportunities.  The humanitarian system is evolving, including coordination between civilian, military and police actors responding to disasters and complex emergencies, including pandemics.

The Australian Civil-Military Centre ACMC) and the Australian Council for International Development (AFCID) has convened an expert group to advise on the themes and priorities to ensure a state of the art revised “Same Space Different Mandates” handbook. 

Join our session to engage with a panel of experts on current and emerging issues impacting civil-military-police relations, such as localisation, the increase in non-state armed groups (NSAGs), and consequences of increased frequency of natural hazards and likelihood of cascading or concurrent disasters.

The session invites all participants to attend and join a discussion on the future of Australian-based NGOs in the context of global change. In collaboration with ACFID, we will provide a short snapshot of actors, priorities, activities and resources, and how these have changed over time since the last ACFID State of the Sector report was published in 2018. In particular, we will consider how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the sector, in terms of its substantive focus, scope and sources of funding, and practices of engagement. While the pandemic has posed many challenges to the sector, it has also presented opportunities to re-envisage how development work is done. In particular, the pandemic has accelerated the discussion of localisation and the related decolonisation agenda involving the dismantling and reshaping of power relations. Following our presentation, we will ask participants to collaboratively reflect on:

·       experiences in the development sector from 2020-2022 in light of the data presented above.

·       whether or not localisation and decolonial practices can and will be sustained in the longer term in the context of cascading global crises.

·       opportunities and challenges for the sector looking ahead.

With the participant's consent, key themes from the discussion will be used to inform the design of a larger collaborative research project between ACFID and Monash University examining the role of Australian NGOs, with the purpose of producing the next ACFID State of the Sector Report. 

Join Minister McCormack as he outlines the Coalition’s priorities for engagement with civil society in the face of ongoing climatic, geopolitical, economic, and technological change.

Join celebrated artist, activist and scholar Dr Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio for a powerful lead into our final panel for Day 1.


Video credited to Michael Inouye 

Science continues to show that as the impacts of climate change accelerate, extreme weather events are taking a major toll in developing countries, particularly in Africa and Asia, home to some of the world’s largest youth populations, and devastating communities and livelihoods across the Pacific.
 
These impacts are not borne equally. Rather, they exacerbate existing systemic and structural injustices, hitting hardest upon those historically and presently disenfranchised as a consequence of racist, heteronormative, colonialist and ableist social institutions and norms.
 
Climate justice insists on the urgent reframing of the narrative of climate-based discourse away from the challenge of mitigation or emissions, to the lens of human rights, and the rights of those who will be most vulnerable to climate impacts. This calls us to a challenge of social change as a radical pre-cursor necessary to survival.

Join us to shift the dial on our appetite for change, to move away from our comfort zone and to the most important justice struggle we may ever encounter.