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Uncertain World

Alex Lucas mural

Uncertain World street art on Park Row, Bristol by Lucas AnticsAmanda Woodman-Hardy

Uncertain World Question Time panel

Uncertain World Question Time event with local leadersAmanda Woodman-Hardy

Uncertain World Summit

Uncertain World Summit with key stakeholdersAmanda Woodman-Hardy

15 February 2016

During 2015, Bristol was European Green Capital and through a series of events and activities, researchers at the Cabot Institute explored The Uncertai‌n World: what the world could be like if greenhouse gas concentrations were twice what they are today.

Dr Pru Foster and Prof Rich Pancost invited you, the public, to explore the Uncertain World with them and asked for your thoughts about uncertainty to help inform their future research and discussions on reducing uncertainty in global environmental change.

Part of the Cabot Institute’s remit is to bring researchers from across different disciplines together to help them form meaningful and impactful research partnerships.  During November 2015, the Cabot Institute and Advanced ERC Award T-GRES funded the bringing together some of its core members and stakeholders at the Uncertain World Summit to discuss uncertainty around the effects of climate change on society, our systems, our economy and the environment.  There was a vibrant mix of scientists, philosophers, policy makers and industry leaders and there were contributions from a range of sectors including health, defence and agriculture as well as from climate researchers on topics such as sea level rise and land use change.  The events led to new partnerships and catalysed existing ones, including with Ujima Radio, DNV-GL, Bristol Green Capital Partnership, Met Office UK, Ministry of Defence and Bristol City Council.

This successful Summit, which was a core component of the European Green Capital's flagship Summits programme, was supported by Bristol Festival of Ideas and led to a broadening and sharing of knowledge and expertise around environmental uncertainty.  Several key guiding principles came out of the summit:

  • The need to minimise environmentally harming behaviours
  • The need to create radically resilient communities
  • Using a systems based approach to finding solutions
  • Finding that there was a common cause, common problems and solutions across many sectors
  • There is an opportunity for transformation and stepping beyond the identification of problems.

During this period the Cabot Institute endeavoured to engage with all parts of the city and all demographics at several events including participation in the citywide Make Sunday Special events, a public dialogue event at Hamilton House in Stokes Croft and at a Question Time event. The Question Time event included a question and answer session to discuss how our changing global environment affects decision and policy making with the City’s Mayor George Ferguson, ARUP’s Senior Sustainability Consultant Ann Cousins, Carbon Brief’s Leo Hickman, former advisor to Comic Relief and former Frome Mayor Peter Macfadyen, and Bristol’s Youth Mayor Neha Mehta.   Watch the full discussion.

View the presentations and see images and videos from these events.

 

Other useful links

 

Further information

For further information about this research project, please visit the official project page at bristol.ac.uk/cabot/research/uncertain-world

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