Canadian Science Policy Conference 2020 featuring CASCADES’ Arctic Governance Simulation

Helping Societies Address Cascading Climate Risks from Outside Geopolitical Boundaries: Case Study on the Arctic

Climate change impacts are both global and regional in nature, and do not stop at geopolitical boundaries. Societies, however, react in very geopolitical ways, often having a better understanding of how climate change will impact their geopolitical regions without as clear a view of how external stressors will play out and influence local outcomes.

This session will use a policy simulation as an international/transboundary foundation, grounding participants in a timely real-world complex situation where they explore how globally relevant climate change impacts (Arctic) occurring beyond a geopolitical region, as well as the economic and social responses to these impacts, might cascade into its geopolitical space.

The simulation exercise creates opportunities for creative exploration of new ideas for better science-policy interface taking into account intertwined complexity of the coupled natural-human systems.

The original concept for this simulation was developed and implemented for the first time as part of the CASCADES project.

Panelists:

• Nicole Arbour, External Relations Manager, IIASA
• Monica Gattinger, Director, Institute for Science, Society and Policy and Professor, University of Ottawa
• Brendan Frank, Senior Research Associate, Institute for Science Society and Policy, University of Ottawa
• Piotr Magnuszewski, Program Leader, Centre for Systems Solutions, Research Scholar with the Risk and Resilience Program, IIASA 
• Tim Giger, Sustainability Expert, Centre for Systems Solutions (CRS)