The Environmental Cooperation and Israel-Palestinian Peace event will take place March 15 at 1pm at 280A 91��ɫ Lanes, Keele campus.

Environmental cooperation has been much-lauded as a force of peace in the Middle East and has been leveraged in support of Track I peacemaking processes between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. It has been pursued as a practice of peace-building, valued for its ability to foster partnership-building, cooperation, identity change and sustainability. Still, the Israel-Palestinian conflict persists, even manifesting through cooperative environmental relations.

�ʲ��Ա���������ٲ��� (right), an international development, peace-building and dialogue researcher-practitioner, and Stuart Schoenfeld (left), chair of the Department of Sociology at 91��ɫ’s Glendon College, will present and discuss the issue. Drawing on their direct experience of working with practitioners, governments and stakeholders in the Middle East, they will critically examine assumptions and practices of environmental cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians. Abitbol and Schoenfeld co-chaired the AVOW initiative (Adaptive Visions of Water in the Middle East), hosted at IRIS from 2007-2009.

Abitbol specializes in hydropolitical issues, with a particular interest in Israeli-Palestinian relations. A Chevening Scholar and associate Fellow at IRIS, he is pursuing a PhD in peace studies at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom, while teaching university courses at the nexus of environment and peace. As a consultant, he recently conducted the Conflict and Peace Effects Study of the Israel-Palestinian Authority-Jordan-World Bank "Red Sea Dead Sea Conveyance" initiative.

Schoenfeld's research on regional environmentalism in the Middle East began in the late 1990s. A network of Israelis, Palestinians and Jordanians began to work towards a common understanding of issues of water, energy, waste, transportation, consumption, biodiversity and sustainable development, and to fashion a way of turning that common understanding into one of the elements for peace and human security in the region.

The project continues to investigate this network and other regional frameworks. The project has produced publications on transboundary environmental networks, environmental peace building, approaches to regional environmental governance and the role of empathy in environmental peace-building.

For more information, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post Panel to examine peace-building and the environment in the Middle East appeared first on Research & Innovation.

The Climate Justice and Politics Workshop is part of the Climate Justice II Workshop Series, “Bringing a Democratic Canadian Perspective to the Climate Change Conference in South Africa: Taking Action on Climate Change.” The event will take place Oct. 26, from 1 to 4pm, 305 91��ɫ Lanes, Keele campus. It is hosted by 91��ɫ’s Institute for Research & Innovation in Sustainability () and Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (), and co-ordinated by Mihae Ahn, a student in 91��ɫ’s Faculty of Environmental Studies (FES), and JP Sapinski, a PhD student at the University of Victoria.

The workshop will feature five student panelists with follow-up commentary by guest discussant 91��ɫ FES Professor Ellie Perkins. It will also be virtually available for those outside the University to participate. For instructions on how to connect, . The idea is to help spark discussion about people who are already marginalized – women, dispossessed classes, indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities and citizens of poorer countries – and who are bearing the brunt of the consequences of a warming world.

The workshop is just one of the events being organized by IRIS and APECS in advance of the United Nations climate change conference, , in Durban, South Africa, in November. It is an opportunity to meet and share ideas with like-minded climate justice activists and academics. It is also intended to solicit input from the audience to inform the work of the 91��ɫ delegates, some of whom will participate in an exhibit booth intended to highlight Inuit experiences and perspectives of climate change. "We are also waiting to hear about the approval of our side event, 'Bridging Knowledges: Communicating on Climate Change Experiences to Build Resilient Communities'," says Rachel Hirsch, a FES post-doctoral fellow and IRIS executive member at 91��ɫ.

Two of the delegates are youth from Arviat, Nunavut. It is important to have the voice of the Arviat youth at COP17, says Hirsch, as they are one of the groups most affected by climate change. The whole idea is to create dialogue. The booth is a joint effort between 91��ɫ, the Inuit Circumpolar Council and the Nanisiniq Project. “Bringing people to COP17 is one way to get people’s voices heard regarding climate change, but it has become a pan-Canadian initiative,” says Hirsch. The result is that “we all want this to be an ongoing network for continuing dialogue. It has become something so much bigger.” 

The five panelists will discuss climate justice and politics from perspectives ranging from ethics and philosophy to critical discourse analysis to the political economy of global warming. FES student Aaron Saad will discuss, “Just and Unjust Solutions to Climate Change and Human Displacement,” Ahn will look at “Climate Change and Hybrid Ethics: A Review of Four Ethical Theories,” University of Toronto students Rachel 91��ɫ-Bridgers and Paul 91��ɫ will discuss “Animals and Climate Change,” Sapinski will talk about “Capitalism, Climate Change and the Discourse of Ecological Modernization” and University of Ottawa student Chris Bisson will look at “Resilient Cooperation – A (Re)new(ed) Alternative to Sustainable Development." Sapinski and Bisson will join the workshop virtually.

“Such a workshop is crucial because it challenges the way that climate change is currently addressed at the global level. The impacts of climate change on people force them to migrate to other countries or regions (climate refugees) or change their whole way of life (First Nations and Inuit people, especially in the North), among others,” says Sapinski. “However, the issue of climate justice is not limited to the impacts of climate change, as injustices and inequalities also come from the way governments deal with the issue.”

For more information on the workshop, its presenters and their abstracts, visit the website. For more information about the Arviat youth, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

The post IRIS and APECS host climate change workshop appeared first on Research & Innovation.