"As countries around the world come together to tackle the threat of climate change at the COP26 climate summit, the question of how cities can become more sustainable has never been more important. Dr Jonathan Clarke, Senior Teaching Fellow in Global Sustainable Development, discusses what some of the key challenges are for transforming our cities to become more resilient, equitable and sustainable to adapt to our changing world."

This video is part of the Faculty of Arts at Home series, produced by the faculty during lockdown and beyond. The series showcases the diversity of research in the Faculty of Arts in relation to overarching themes.

Earlier this week, Romain Chenet, Teaching Fellow in GSD, and Dr Alastair Smith, Senior Teaching Fellow in GSD, discussed the hidden and not-so hidden climate costs of the food in our fridges and pantries. The webinar included a short presentation followed by an invitation to join in a “show and tell” where the effects of climate change on food production and what you can do to help were explored.

Catch up on the webinar online here.

This event was part of the 2021 ESRC Festival of Social Science. You can find out more about the rest of the programme for the Festival here.

Now in only its second year, the Warwick Climate Negotiating Forum 2021, launched in 2019 by GSD students, has been awarded £10,000 in grant funding by the Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning at the University of Warwick.

Dr Jess Savage, Assistant Professor in the Global Sustainable Development Department and Deputy Head of the School for Cross-faculty Studies will attend COP26, the UN Climate Change summit, later this month. Jess is one of several academics and experts from the University of Warwick who have been selected to attend COP26.

The School for Cross-faculty Studies is delighted to announce that it has been successful in its application for the Athena SWAN Bronze Award. We are now engaged in implementing our five-year Athena SWAN Action Plan.

Applications are invited for a three-and-half-year (42 months) funded PhD studentship at the University of Warwick starting in autumn 2021. The successful candidate will be based at the University’s Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies (YPCCS) and the research can be into any aspect of the history, literature, culture or societies of the Caribbean.

Before submitting an application, candidates should identify and make contact with a potential supervisor from among the Centre's academic staff. Academic members of staff at the Centre include Professor Stéphanie Panichelli-Batalla, Head of the School for Cross-faculty Studies; and Dr Leon Sealey Huggins, Assistant Professor in GSD. You can also identify a potential co-supervisor from our list of PhD supervisors at the School for Cross-faculty Studies. Without a suitable supervisor, the candidate will not be eligible.

The world is acting on climate change - just not effectively. Hear from Dr Nick Bernards, Associate Professor in GSD, in his latest article for The Conversation on climate action.

"If we want results, we may need to go beyond simply demanding action and instead focus on changing the way the global economy is organised and governed."

There has been a prominent and growing realisation that the current “real” global food prices – as adjusted for inflation - are high, relative to the past.

Example headlines include:

“Prices are at the highest since 2014, risking faster inflation” (Bloomberg, May 2021).

However, this representation is inaccurate. Based on simple observation of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) publically available graphics (2021), it is more accurate to say that:

‘It is on average harder to buy food today in 2021, than it has been since 2014, and in fact for most of the noughties, the entire decade of the 1990s, and the 1980s; most of the 1970s, and every year of the 1960s! Food is more expensive today than it has been for the vast majority of modern recorded history.'

While significant media attention on the impact of COVID-19 has empirical justification, most FAO crop reports cite unpredictable weather to explain supply contraction.

This might not be the beginning of the end of the world; but if and when that does come, it will very likely look something like this.

The dual issues of chronic food shortage and inequality currently driving social unrest in South Africa offer further insights into potential futures where the injustice of our global Climate Emergency remains unchallenged.

Read the latest Think Development blog post by Dr Alastair Smith, Senior Teaching Fellow in GSD.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading authority on climate, published its latest report on Monday 9 August 2021.

The IPCC report represents a red alert and an immediate call to action. Among the key points to be drawn out of the report are the concerns that extreme weather events are on the rise; carbon dioxide levels are at their highest in 2 million years; and changes to ice, ocean and sea levels could be ‘irreversible for centuries’.

• Hear from Professor João Porto de Albuquerque, Director of the Institute for Global Sustainable Development, on the "two crucial and immediate take home messages from the report"
• Hear from Dr Marta Guerriero, Deputy Head of the School for Cross-faculty Studies (GSD), on the “unequivocal” evidence presented by the report and the "urgent" need for collective action