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The Berlin Conference Steering Committee and the Environmental Policy and Global Change section of the German Political Science Association and its partners invite papers for the 2006 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, to be held in Berlin on 17-18 November 2006. This conference will be the sixth event in the series of annual Berlin Conferences. This year’s discussions will address the theme ‘Resource Policies: Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Equity’. Plenary speakers will include Professor Paul Ekins, Policy Studies Institute London, UK, Prof. Marina Fischer-Kowalski, IFF Vienna – Department of Social Ecology, Austria, and Prof. Martin Jänicke, Freie Universitaet Berlin – Environmental Policy Research Centre, Germany. Resource Policies: Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Equity The sustainable use of natural resources has been a challenge for environmental policies from their very beginning. Without an appropriate institutional setting, scarce resources such as water, materials, energy sources, land, etc. are overused, following the infamous logic of the tragedy of the commons. Related to this are issues of effective resource policies, efficient resource consumption, and equity on a global scale. Effective resource policies have to cope with a high degree of complexity: Policies that effectively limit the use of natural resources are often perceived as jeopardizing the economic basis of industrial sectors. They are not only opposed by the affected sector, but cause fierce debates within governments and at different levels of policy-making. Economic imperatives are likely to be a particular challenge for traditional and indigenous institutions to protect access to and safeguard sustainable use of local resources. It is subject to investigation whether specific institutions are more robust to these challenges than others and whether these institutions are actually diffusing and replacing more vulnerable approaches. Safeguarding the access to natural resources such as oil or water has been and still is a matter of security in a large number of countries. An increase in the productivity of resource use – efficiency – is a declared objective in many strategies for sustainable development throughout the world. A shift from material-intensive production to a stronger knowledge and service-based economy is not only seen as an ecological must, but also promises positive effects on employment. Recently, efforts have been made in Europe and Japan to adopt specific strategies and to achieve these objectives. A number of these initiatives deals with minimising and cleaning waste streams, other strategies and instruments focus on products. Furthermore, the exploding demand for steel, coal, oil etc. in the rapidly growing East and South Asian economies has an impact on the prices of raw materials. This demand may question the efforts for the cleaning or even reduction of resource flows. However, rising prices may also open up new opportunities for innovations that are less material- or energy-intensive, thereby contributing to ecological modernisation. Economic growth and globalisation are contributing to the overexploitation of resources in developing countries, raising questions of equity. Such issues can be based on undefined property rights, political upheaval, conflicts or simply poverty. When a country’s high export share of resources comes along with declining world market prices, economic problems of resource exports can lead to immiserising growth. Improvements in efficiency and the reduction of resource use in industrialised countries may lead to an outsourcing of material flows and the related environmental burden. The Berlin Conference addresses the following topics: How and how effectively are
governments, public and private actors around the world addressing
these problems? Given the rising demand for industrial goods, what
are the potentials and limitations of strategies to increase
resource productivity and the cleaning of waste streams? What are
the most promising entry points for governmental interventions? Are
regulatory policies, such as take-back obligations for waste, a
viable instrument towards cleaner production chains? To what extent
are recent efforts to develop product policies likely to be
effective and efficient? To what extent are institutions by private
actors such as the Stewardship Councils to protect the Marine and
the Forests a promising approach? What strategies are adopted in
developing countries to safeguard access to and sustainable use of
natural resources and how do they work?
As in previous conferences, we especially encourage paper submissions about teaching on global environmental change in higher education programs. This year we invite papers dealing with governance for ecological sustainable development and especially resource policies in PhD and master programmes. Papers and posters shall contribute to the following issues:
The 2006 Berlin Conference has been
endorsed by the core projects ‘Institutional Dimensions of Global
Environmental Change’ and ‘Industrial Transformation’ of the
International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental
Change (IHDP).
Deadline The deadline for paper proposals is 15 June 2006. All paper submissions will be reviewed by an international review panel. Notification of the decision will be sent by e-mail no later than 15 July 2006. Full papers are expected by 1 November 2006. We are making all efforts to ensure funding to reimburse the travel costs of some conference participants, with a preference for junior colleagues and colleagues from developing countries. Paper presenters and other participants are asked to contribute a registration fee of 120 Euros (50 Euros for students with valid student ID) upon registration.
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