Pardee Director at the Boston Committee on Foreign Relations

Prof. Adil Najam, the Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and a Professor of International Relations and Geography and Environment at Boston University, was invited to speak to the Boston Committee on Foreign Relations on “Beyond Copenhagen: Challenges and Opportunities.”

Speaking to an audience of globally concerned citizens and professionals, Prof. Najam argued that taking a longer-range view of the climate challenge requires us to look at it as a challenge of development; and particularly so for the poorest communities who are going to suffer the most with climatic changes.

Prof. Najam also argued that the lesson from Copenhagen is important well beyond the climate issue and part of that lesson is that a new system of global governance is struggling to be born even as our international institutions become incapable of responding to the greatest challenges of our times, of which climate change is only one.