High-level Dialogue and Adaptation Round Table: Global Sustainability in a Changing Climate

Invitation to press conference

The organisers of the 3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability have the pleasure of welcoming members of the media to a press conference on 6 December, 2011, at the international climate change negotiations in Durban.

Who: Key participants include Jacob Zuma, President of South Africa and Co-Chair of the UN Secretary General’s High-level Panel on Global Sustainability; Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations (to be confirmed); Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); and Lena Ek, Sweden’s Minister for the Environment. The event is hosted by the chairs of the Symposium Johan Rockström, Executive Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

What: Press conference on key links between climate change response and global sustainability, in the context of planetary boundaries. A Durban Vision Statement will be presented, drawing on the dialogue, to help inspire progress during COP17/CMP7 and provide a bridge to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20).

Where: Africa Pavilion, Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre (ICC), Durban, South Africa, at COP17

When: Tuesday, 6 December, 12:30 pm local time in Durban. For more information on the agenda, please visit: tinyurl.com/HighLevelDialogue-Agenda

Why: This event aims to inject positive energy into the COP17/CMP7 climate negotiations. It will highlight the crucial context within which climate change is occurring: the grand challenge of a transition to global sustainability. Urgent action is needed in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, adapt to unavoidable climate change, and to secure socio-economic development in a world with nine billion people by 2050.

Details of the High-level Dialogue and Adaptation Roundtable
This event, which builds on the 3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability held in Stockholm earlier this year, will position climate change adaptation and the COP17 negotiations within the broader agenda of sustainable development, making it clear that:

• The climate challenge is profoundly connected to global sustainability and development – one cannot be solved without the other.
• Climate solutions must go hand-in-hand with efforts to address other social, economic and environmental challenges.
• Drivers of climate change must be controlled fast, to secure development opportunities and pull back from the brink of negative impacts on interconnected planetary boundaries.

In addition to the speakers listed above, we are fortunate to have Connie Hedegaard (European Commissioner for Climate Action), Mohamed Gharib Bilal (Vice President of Tanzania), Peter Kent (Canada’s Minister of the Environment), Sir Nicholas Stern, and some of the best minds in climate science, sustainable development and policy, as well as several high-profile African political leaders.

The event will be hosted by Symposium co-chairs Professor Johan Rockström, Executive Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. The event is supported by United Postcode Lotteries and Sekunjalo Development Foundation.

Note to editors
Interviews with the event hosts, Professor Johan Rockström, Executive Director of the Stockholm Environment Institute and the Stockholm Resilience Centre, and Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, may be arranged through the contacts below.

Media contacts
In Durban: 
Robert Watt, Director of Communications, SEI
robert.watt@sei-international.org 
Mobile: +46 73 707 8589

Marion Davis, SEI-US Communications
marion.davis@sei-international.org
Local mobile: +27 7290 89430

In Sweden:
Ylva Rylander, Press and Communications, SEI
ylva.rylander@sei-international.org
Mobile: +46 73 150 338

More information
The 3rd Nobel Laureate Symposium on Global Sustainability took place at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm between 16 and 19 May, 2011, and gathered some 50 of the world’s most renowned thinkers and experts on global sustainability – half of them Nobel Laureates.

The symposium built on previous meetings in Potsdam and London and focused on the need for integrated approaches to environmental change and development that deal with the synergies, conflicts and trade-offs between them. The Symposium concluded with the signing of The Stockholm Memorandum by the Nobel Laureates. The Memorandum was handed over in person to the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability appointed by the UN Secretary General.

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