event

Climate Science, Policy, Fiction, and Narrative: Framing the Upcoming Special Report on Cities and Climate Change

Tue. April 2nd, 2024
Live Online

On April 16, scientists, academics, and other experts will convene in Riga, Latvia, for the scoping meeting for the Special Report on Climate Change and Cities, to be included in the Seventh Assessment Report (AR7) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Special Report on Climate Change and Cities will be the only special report in AR7, and the scoping meeting will set out its structure, focus, and frame.  

Scoping meeting participants, including some of the world’s leading climate scientists and city experts, will draw on a huge body of knowledge produced by scholars, city networks, and IPCC authors, including the Summary for Urban Policymakers, a city-focused distillation of the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. Even with this deep body of work, the run-up to the Riga meeting presents an important window for experts to broaden their knowledge, widen their imagination, and test the narratives that will inform the outcome.  

Join the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace for a special discussion that will bring together IPCC authors (including some who will participate in Riga), climate policy experts, and writers using fiction and narrative to push the boundaries of science and policy. The conversation will include an overview of the upcoming Special Report; readings from Indivisible Cities, in which authors from the French literary collective Oulipo collaborate with members of the international science and policy communities to develop new fictional representations of cities under climate pressure; and a wider discussion of the role of narratives in advancing climate action. 

Climate Change
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
event speakers

Michèle Audin

Michèle Audin is a mathematician specializing in symplectic geometry and the author of books on the history of mathematics and the Paris Commune, as well as several books of fiction including, most recently, Paris, boulevard Voltaire suivi de Ponts (L’Arbalète Gallimard, 2023). She has been a member of the literary collective Oulipo since 2009.

Liliana Gamboa

Nonresident Scholar, Carnegie California; Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics Program

Liliana Gamboa is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Carnegie California and in the Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics Program.

Noah Gordon

Acting Co-Director, Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics Program, Fellow, Europe Program

Noah J. Gordon is acting co-director of the Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC.

Emily Hardy

James C. Gaither Junior Fellow, Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics Program

Emily Hardy was a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow in the Carnegie Sustainability, Climate, and Geopolitics Program.

Marissa Jordan

Program Manager, Carnegie California

Marissa Jordan is the program manager of Carnegie California at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She has a master’s degree in conflict analysis and resolution from the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University. Her previous research has focused on how anti–human trafficking service providers understand climate change’s role in driving human trafficking in their particular regions.

Ian Klaus

Founding Director, Carnegie California

Ian Klaus is the founding director of Carnegie California. He is a leading scholar on the nexus of urbanization, geopolitics, and global challenges, with extensive experience as a practitioner of subnational diplomacy.

Daniel Levin Becker

Daniel Levin Becker is the author of Many Subtle Channels (Harvard, 2012) and What’s Good (City Lights, 2022) and the translator of, most recently, Jakuta Alikavazovic’s Like a Sky Inside (Fern, 2024), Éric Chevillard’s Museum Visits (Yale, 2024), and Laurent Mauvignier’s The Birthday Party (Fitzcarraldo/Transit, 2023), which was longlisted for the International Booker Prize. He has been a member of the literary collective Oulipo since 2009.

Aromar Revi

Aromar Revi is the director of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements India’s prospective Institution of Eminence and interdisciplinary national University focused on urbanization.

Seth Schultz

Seth Schultz is the CEO of Resilience Rising. A globally recognized innovator and thought leader, he has a long track record of building consensus and initiating change in the field of sustainable development, urban climate action, and resilient infrastructure.