Towards a Sustainable Financial System

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December 8–9th, 2012,
Potsdam, Germany

What transformations of the global financial system are required to ensure a sustainable development of humankind in the 21st century? The Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies – IASS – in Potsdam has started an investigation of this question. To support this inquiry, it will organize a series of workshops together with the European research network Global Systems Dynamics and Policy, coordinated by the Global Climate Forum. The first such workshop took place  in Potsdam, Germany, on December 8-9, 2012.  It was dedicated to an assessment of the proposal for a sustainable financial system made by the governor of the People’s Bank of China. Read more

Germany and Europe: Towards a New Growth Path? – Energy Sector Transition

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December 11, 2012
Neue Promenade 6, Berlin, Germany

Energy Sector Transition – German Madness or an Opportunity for Growth?

Germany has decided to phase out nuclear energy and to transform its energy sector into one based on renewable energy. On the one hand, this decision can be viewed as a purely political one. On the other hand, it can be regarded as a potential source of economic growth with innovation and technological advances, which may increase energy efficiency and general productivity. The goal to raise the share of renewables in the energy market to 20% turned out to be successful. This largely happened due to the feed­-in-­tariff and without significant changes to the structure of the energy market. But striving towards a 100% share of renewables will require massive changes in technology and infrastructure related to production, storage, grid and consumption, as well as associated transformations of governance structures and the market mechanisms themselves. Read more

First Open Global Systems Science Conference

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November 8–10, 2012
Brussels, Belgium

The aim of the Conference is to contribute to the development of Global Systems Science (GSS). The study of problems as diverse as global climate change and global financial crises is currently converging towards a new kind of research – Global Systems Science.

GSS builds on economics as well as on climatology, on history as well as on geography and on a variety of further disciplines. However, it is no attempt to renew the failed pursuit for a single unified science. It simply integrates insights and methods that are useful in studying global systems and develops them further for that purpose. Read more

Chief economist meets … Thomas Straubhaar!

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June 19, 2012
Mercator Project Center Berlin, Germany

A public debate on new economic thinking

This is the start of a series of interviews with Thomas Fricke and german economists regarding new economic thinking, initiated by the Global Climate Forum (GCF) and the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD).

Recently, Thomas Straubhaar, Director of the Hamburg Institute of International Economics, has expressed massive criticism of an economic orthodoxy that he himself represented for a long time. He did so in an interview with Thomas Fricke, chief economist of the Financial Times Deutschland, which generated a controversial discussion.

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Germany and Europe: Towards a New Growth Path?

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June 19, 2012
Mercator Project Centre Berlin, Germany

“German leaders will have to choose between a shipwreck and a change in course. I do not know which Germany will choose. I do not know whether its leaders know. But on that choice hangs the fate of Europe.“

This is how Martin Wolf of the Financial Times describes the drama unfolding in Europe – a drama that has gained a new twist with France electing president Hollande. Read more

Financial Risks, Green Growth and Jobs

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May 3-4, 2012
World Trade Centre, Barcelona, Spain

Challenges to Global Systems Science:
From Climate Change to Market Governance

The conference is organised by:

Global Systems Dynamics and Policy (GSDP)
Global Climate Forum (GCF)
Integrated Risk Governance Project (IRGP)

Outline

The global financial crisis has posed an additional challenge to the governance of global systems. While the economic progress in many emerging economies is continuing, debt-laden countries, especially in Southern Europe, feel stuck in a global financial system outside their control. Populations are facing mass unemployment and public unrest is rising. There is also a notable reaction within the western economies against a perceived unfair distribution of wealth and the fact that global environmental risks are left unattended. Read more

New Thinking about Global Challenges – GSDP Annual Conference

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October 10-11, 2011
Umweltforum Berlin, Germany

There is an urgent need for new thinking about global systems, in particular about the main driving force of globalization: the world economy.

Missed the conference?

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Conference Proceedings

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Outline

The 21st century will be a period of unprecedented global challenges – instability of financial markets, global environmental change, large-scale demographic shifts, and more. The famous saying of Einstein’s – that we cannot solve problems with the thinking that generated them – is particularly relevant in the face of these challenges. There is an urgent need for new thinking about global systems, in particular about the main driving force of globalization: the world economy. Read more

Integrated Risk Governance in the Mediterranean Region: Climate Change, Democracy, and Growth

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April 28-29, 2011
UAB Casa Convalescència, Barcelona, Spain

A conference organized by the European Climate Forum (ECF) on behalf of the CIRCE project and the GSDP network

ECF conferences are known for the unusual spirit of open debate and exchange between scientists and stakeholders. In this spirit, we will look at the tasks of risk governance in the Mediterranean region. We will start from climate risks and climate policies, while acknowledging that these cannot be dealt with in isolation.

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GSDP workshop as a Satellite Meeting at ECCS’11 Vienna—European Conference on Complex Systems

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Social energy: a useful notion for analysing complex socio-ecological systems?

The metaphor social energy, based on an analogy to energy in physics, is supposed to facilitate the study of complex socio-ecological systems. It has been, to some extent, discussed in the GSDP network.

A half-day workshop to further the discussion around social energy will be scheduled during the European Conference on Complex Systems ECCS’11 in Vienna between September 12 and 16, 2011.

More information can be found here!

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Funding Research for ICT solutions for governance and policy modelling

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06.12.2010, Workshop in collaboration with the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union (FP7).

Within the 7th EU Framework Program, the EU has issued a call for the development of ICT solutions for governance and policy modelling. This call has an indicative budget of 25 million Euros; the deadline for handing in proposals is 18 January 2011.

In our workshop, EU officials and experienced researchers will inform about both this call and its opportunities for research funding. The target audience are representatives from research organisations, ICT business, state agencies, and civil society. Read more