Conference website: gccbs2013.com

Groups such as the European Parliament have recently described climate change, biodiversity and sustainable development as “the greatest challenges of our time”. Recognizing that the well-being of humankind is severely affected by climate change and biodiversity loss, and that it depends on healthy and resilient ecosystems, the integration of these issues is imperative.

This three-day conference will do just that by examining the challenges to, and opportunities for, integrating the three issues of GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE, BIODIVERSITY AND SUSTAINABILITY. The conference will provide a collection of keynote speakers, paper and poster sessions, training opportunities, discussion workshops as well as study tours of the host city, Alexandria, and its surroundings.

The conference aims to establish the scientific foundation for sound decisions on infrastructure, urban development, natural resources, public health, and insurance, as well as for planning – from community organizations to international disaster risk management. Papers presented will provide assessments of the baseline data and systematic observation networks to assess biodiversity conservation, sustainability options and policy responses to global climate change; integrate our knowledge of likely future global changes reflecting both scientific and traditional knowledge; report on predictive models and decision support tools to guide the design and selection of adaptation strategies from local to regional scales; and establish a framework for future collaborative research on climate change, biodiversity, and sustainable development. The focus will be on institutional capacity-building in governments, research centres and universities.

We are seeking innovative contributions to share results and information from researchers, industry representatives and managers of climate change, biodiversity, and sustainability activities under the following topics:

• Risk Management
• Water Availability
• Our Changing Climate
• Urban Planning for Resilience
• Biodiversity
• Sustainable Tourism
• Coastal Erosion
• Food Security
• Adaptation to Climate Change
• Renewable Energy (wind, solar, wave, biomass)
• Integrated Coastal Zone Management
• Eco-housing
• Human Health
• Climate Economics and Finance
• Disaster Management
• Agriculture
• Environmental Refugees
• Other

Abstracts for poster presentations, short papers (10 min.) and research papers (20 min.) on these themes will be accepted until 15 January 2013.

Accepted papers will be published by the Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, a peer-reviewed press dedicated to publishing Smithsonian research and scholarship.

Conference website: gccbs2013.com