Pardee Center Director to be featured at Global Media Conference in Germany
Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University, Prof. Adil Najam, will be featured as a plenary speaker at a major global media conference organized by Germany’s Deutsche Welle to be held in Bonn, Germany, 21-23 June, 2010. The theme for this year’s conference is “The Heat is On: Climate Change and the Media.”
Since 2008 the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum takes place regularly in Bonn. The main agenda items will change but the event will always address ways to cope with challenges and developments whose course is largely influenced by media worldwide. The target group is both international and inter-disciplinary. Media representatives from around the world, high-profile experts of inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations, politicians, artists, entrepreneurs and scientists sit around the same table at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum. A simple philosophy drives the initiative: Those working on the future have to think in networks – and in global dimensions. In 2010, the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum once again offers more than 50 events including podium discussions and workshops, interactive presentations and exhibitions, networking and interesting side events. It takes place at the World Conference Center Bonn, close to Deutsche Welle’s headquarters.
A profile and description of Prof. Najam’s work done for the conference lays out some of the aspects of his work that relate to the conference:
Climate expert Adil Najam believes that one of the major challenges associated with climate change involves the options that people have to adapt to change. And there is a big difference between the North and South. “Climate change hits poorest first, hits the poorest hardest and hits the poorest disproportionately“, said Najam in an interview with Deutsche Welle. He named Haiti as an example. As a result of the latest earthquake in 2009, so many people had died because they were poverty stricken, living in huts and houses in disrepair.
An American citizen who was born in Pakistan, Najam is professor of global policy at Boston University and director of the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future. He was a leading author on the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, and is just one of the many experts attending the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum. This year’s conference, entitled “The Heat is On – Climate Change and the Media”, will take place from June 21-23 in Bonn.
Najam puts the responsibility on industrialized nations. “According to the polluter pays principle the industrialized nations assured the developing countries in 1992 that they would reduce greenhouse gases and advance the cause of post-carbon society. But the industrialized nations haven’t even remotely kept their promise.”
According to Najam, another major challenge lies in the balance between national and global interests. He said that the climate summit in Copenhagen last December showed all too well, other powers have come to determine the international negotiations, especially the emerging economies of China, India and Brazil. He went on to say that “the most important players are no longer just the nation states” – the business world and civil society have become important, too. “What we need is a real partnership between the three.”
Prof. Najam’s profile and description in relation to the conference can be found here and here.