Seminar on 'Dealing with Climate Risks: The Prospects for Climate Diplomacy'

Date: 28 November 2013 (Thursday)
Time: 3.30 – 5pm
Venue: RSIS Seminar Room 5

Speaker: Mr Dennis Taenzler, Head of Climate and Energy Policies, adelphi (Berlin-based environmental think-tank)

About the Seminar:


	Credit: Jaime Goloyugo

Flooding, droughts, a shift of climate zones, and increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather hazards will have serious economic and social consequences for entire regions. Countries with low adaptation capacities are likely to be hit the hardest by these climate changes, among them many of the so-called fragile states. To address this challenge, a new profile of climate diplomacy is evolving using the full range of available policies, including development cooperation, conflict prevention, and humanitarian assistance, as well as climate change adaptation and mitigation. The aim is to move from risk analysis of climate-related threats to preventive action. This also calls for ways to integrate climate change concerns into development, foreign, and security policies. Based on the discussions of major developments within the European Union (EU), the United Nations (UN) and Germany, this seminar sought to outline some of the potential key tasks for climate diplomacy in the future that are needed to complement the negotiations for a comprehensive, global climate agreement.

About the Speaker:

Dennis Taenzler is Head of Climate and Energy Policies at adelphi (adelphi is a leading think tank for policy analysis and strategy consulting). His research focuses on climate and energy policies as well as on peace and conflict studies. In 2007 and 2008, he served the Policy Planning Unit of the German Foreign Office as an expert on climate and energy policies. Dennis Taenzler has more than ten years of experience in international environmental policy, European environmental policy and policy integration, climate change and institutional aspects of environment, conflict and cooperation. In the course of more than 50 projects, he has undertaken research on climate protection and energy policies in the European Union, the United States and a number of developing and transition countries. Furthermore he provided in-depth analysis on the security implications of climate change and contributed to interdisciplinary research on new methodologies for vulnerability assessments. Dennis Taenzler has published widely on international affairs and environmental policy and is the programme director on the environment, conflict and cooperation platform (www.ecc-platform.org ). He holds master degrees in political science as well as in North American Studies and Cultural Sciences.