Two Warwick researchers are presenting at this week’s Climate Exp0 online conference, organised by the COP26 Universities Network and the Italian University Network for Sustainable Development (RUS).

The conference is part of the official All4Climate Pre-COP programme and aims to showcase international research with relevance to the issues to be tackled at the forthcoming COP26 UN Climate Change conference, taking place in Glasgow in November.

Dr Raquel Nunes, Senior Research Fellow at Warwick Medical School, takes part in an online poster session on Thursday. Her presentation will address the Determinants of General and Specified Resilience to Extreme Temperatures, part of a bigger project looking at the relationship between assets, vulnerability, resilience and adaptation to extreme temperatures.

She comments: “We know that extreme temperatures impact human health and well-being. Yet, very little empirical evidence exists on what determines human resilience, both in general and in relation to specified extreme temperatures. This study addresses this serious gap in knowledge by developing a general resilience index and qualitative assessments of specified resilience to extreme temperatures. The findings reveal that believing threats, for example, extreme temperatures are structured and ordered, perceiving that assets are available to respond to them, and feeling it is worth responding are sources of resilience.”

“Concrete policy recommendations to improve resilience could take the form of programs, plans, and actions supporting individuals to better deal with challenging life events through people or community-centered approaches and delivered ‘locally’. Opportunities for further research may include investigating the resilience of individuals and communities to different threats such as wildfires, drought, and floods, in different locations.”

Dr John Morris, Teaching Fellow in International Political Economy at PAIS, is presenting on Friday in a session on the theme of Macropolicy.

He will provide an initial appraisal of the growing consensus within the central banking community that there must be increased coordination and immediate action to address the main risks and challenges to financial stability as result of climate change, and a transition to low carbon economies.

He said: “I will argue that a call to action is welcome, but that we should think carefully about the nature of central bank interventions and how market participants respond to them. I illustrate my points by drawing on my previous research into the design and implementation of stress testing programmes. We know from past examples that the design and methodology of these tests can determine how seriously the media and financial sectors act on the results. Furthermore, and as Paul Langley and I have argued elsewhere, central bank interventions that go wrong could place climate change risk beyond the governmental reach of central banks in a contemporary financial landscape that is marked by the wholesale financial circuits of ‘shadow banks’.

Commenting on the significance of the event, Dr Morris added: “The conference is a fantastic opportunity for a range of academics to achieve critical mass in shaping policy initiatives and public opinion on a practical, just and fair transition to a sustainable economy.

“From a personal perspective, it will allow me to draw on the considerable expertise of fellow panellists as I refine the central ideas of my forthcoming book project on the limits of central banking in world of uncertainty and climate change.”

The event is free to attend and anyone with an interest in the topics under discussion can register at https://www.climateexp0.org/

19 May 2021

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