Published December 2, 2010
by iris_author
IRIS Climate Justice Fellow and Political Science PhD candidate, Jacqueline Medalye and Political Science PhD candidate Ryan Foster will be attending the upcoming United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP16) conference in Cancun Mexico being held from November 29 to December 10, 2010. They will be representing York University thanks to IRIS’ NGO accreditation.
On December 7th, at Klimaforum, a grassroots response to the official conference, Medalye and Foster will present their recent research on the topics of climate change, Canadian policy, and the Arctic. Expected in attendance will be a wide community of actors involved in the multi-disciplined field of climate change.
At COP16, Medalye and Foster will be observing the proceedings for their research on financing structures in the Global South. At Klimaforum, they will be active participants presenting their research on the Canadian government’s plans for adaptation to climate change. Currently, Canada is identifying its risks associated with climate change and how these can be translated into benefits for financial markets. Specifically, Medalye and Foster are looking at the melting of sea ice which is resulting in the unlocking of resources.
Medalye and Foster’s goal is to expose this strategy to the international climate justice community. Through networking and informing key stakeholders about these adaptation strategies they hope to create partnerships that will lead to mobilization against these plans.
As an IRIS representative, Medalye will be distributing a report describing the proceedings and outcomes of an Ecojustice Conference organized by IRIS at York in 2009.
Follow Medalye on the IRIS blog: Turning Up the Heat as she applies a critical eye to the COP16 proceedings. As a veteran of the COP15 conference in Copenhagen these perspectives will be contrasted with the next two weeks’ events.
To hear more about COP16 please check this space in the near future for details on the IRIS debrief event in January 2011.
Posted in: IRIS News