Posted on 10/05/21 by Kristen Guida
Met Office Industry Climate Week From 24-28 May the Met Office will be sharing content from climate scientists and partner organisations about what industry leaders are doing to adapt and transition to net zero, and what the latest climate science means for business and industry. On 25 May there will be a webinar on using wind data to reduce CO2 emissions in the aviation sector. On the 26th, “Climate risks and opportunities for business leaders” will explore the practical steps, advice, and relevant data needed to improve business climate resilience. Find out more about the week and how to register for webinars here.
The Impact of Climate Change on Mental Health The Institute of Global Health Innovation and the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London have organized this panel discussion on 27 May on the impact of climate change on mental health and emotional wellbeing. The event will launch the briefing paper” The impact of climate change on mental health and emotional wellbeing: evidence and implications for policy and practice,” which proposes recommendations to improve knowledge, awareness and action across sectors.
Street Scale Greening for Cooling and Clean Air The Global Centre for Clean Air Research, in collaboration with the University of Wollongong, Australia, is hosting a webinar on street-scale greening for cooling and clean air on 29 June, 8-10am. Green infrastructure offers benefits, including air pollution abatement. However, relationships between GI, air quality, and cooling are complex and poor design can lead to negative repercussions. The webinar, chaired by Prashant Kumar and is part of the SCAN project, which will develop a new framework for street-scale greening that is generic, inclusive of pollution-cooling trade-offs, evidence-based, and practicable.
Changing flood risk and social vulnerability Few studies linking local deprivation with flood exposure have analysed the effect of climate change in the long term, and none provide an empirical analysis capturing the effects of recent spatial planning decisions on changes in flood exposure in interaction with differences in the socioeconomic development of local communities. This study, Current and future flood risk of new build homes across different socio-economic neighbourhoods in England and Wales, addresses the lack of evidence by investigating where new homes have been built between 2008 and 2018 in England and Wales, how they are contributing to the current and future flood risk of their neighbourhoods, and how the socioeconomic development of the neighbourhoods they have been built in might affect their resilience to flooding as the climate changes. The results indicate that a spatial shift in flood risk areas as a result of climate change is expected to result in more homes built over the last decade to end up in high flood risk areas over their lifetimes without further action. This increase is expected to be disproportionately higher in multi-cultural urban neighbourhoods and areas dominated by increasingly struggling home owners.
Job Opportunity: The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) is seeking a Specialist Adviser on Sustainability of the Built Environment. Their inquiry will examine how to account for and reduce the embodied carbon in buildings, the role of the planning system in delivering a sustainable built environment, and what balance should be struck between the re-use and retrofitting of existing buildings and the construction of new developments. Deadline 28 May.
Environmental Justice and Systemic Racism Speaker Series The US Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice has been running a series of events to promote understanding about systemic racism and the roots of disproportionate environmental and public health impacts, and to demonstrate how communities in different US cities are using risk and vulnerability mapping as a platform for engagement. Truly inspiring stuff here, find recordings and transcripts, plus details about future events on the EPA website.
ECCA 2021 The European Climate Change Adaptation (ECCA) 2021 conference will take place online from 25 May to 22 June, with a series of nine webinars that will lead up to a high-level event on the 22nd. Find the programme (under development) here. Registration information is here.