Major new sustainability conference to provide scientific leadership for Rio 20

Planet Under Pressure 2012: New Knowledge Towards Solutions 26-29 March 2012 | London, UK

Planet Under Pressure 2012 is a major international science conference focusing on solutions to the global sustainability challenge.

More than 3700 abstracts are currently being reviewed for input to the conference programme which will in turn provide scientific leadership towards the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development - Rio+20.

Top international speakers will lead a comprehensive and interdisciplinary programme that will bring together natural, physical and social scientists, together with economists. It will also involve engineers, health specialists and many others disciplines, plus with national and international policymakers, industry representatives, technologists, NGOs and development experts.

Conference sessions will be arranged within the following general outline:

Day 1: State of the planet: the latest knowledge about the pressures on the planet

Day 2: Options and opportunities: exchanging knowledge about ways of reducing the pressures on the planet, promoting transformative changes for a sustainable future and adapting to changes in the global system

Day 3: Challenges to progress: clarifying what is preventing or slowing humanity from implementing potential solutions

Day 4: Ways ahead: a vision for 2050 and beyond, and exploring new partnerships and pathways towards global sustainability

Each day will include relevant aspects of the main conference themes:

• Meeting global needs: food, energy, water and other ecosystem services

• Transforming our way of living: development pathways under global environmental change

• Governing across scales: innovative stewardship of the Earth system

 

The conference will take place at Excel in London, UK. 26-29 March 2012 and aims to attract more than 3000 of the world's leading thinkers on global-change research. Taking place two months prior to the next UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, scheduled for May 2012, the London conference is anticipated to provide a solid scientific foundation for the summit. Early booking delegate rates are available until 20 January 2012.

The four-day conference is sponsored by the International Council for Science's (ICSU) global environmental change research programmes and has been initiated by ICSU's International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP).

In the UK, the conference is hosted by the Royal Society, the Living With Environmental Change programme (LWEC, which represents all the UK's main agencies and government departments tackling environmental change) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the UK's largest funder of environmental science.

 

For full information on the plenary speakers and to register visit www.planetunderpressure2012.net