Round Table No.2 - From Rio to COP21 and IJSD

Round Table 2: From Rio to COP21, the science-society interface and the 20th anniversary of the International Journal of Sustainable Development (IJSD)
Moderated by Mister Martin O'CONNOR, Professor of Economics, University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, and co-editor of the journal IJSD.

  • "Circular economy in Europe: challenges and opportunities", Mister Vasileios RIZOS (research officer, energy and climate change, Centre for European Policiy Studies -CEPS Belgium). The expositeur presented the circular economy as a new economic model where materials and waste energy or products are reintroduced into the economic system, however, many obstacles can obstaculiser the implementation to the European Union.
  • An integrated open source platform for resilience," Mister Peter HEAD (founder and chief executive, The Ecological Sequestration Trust -TEST, UK. He built a system model called Resilience.io. This model is a combination between data layers (and imported materials, energy, industry, food, agriculture, transport, waste ...) in order to build an overall picture of the economy, ecology and human activity of a city, which allows to plan and work on the economic benefits in infrastructure investment and resource efficiency while addressing the ecological and social impact.
  • "Intended and unintended innovation - Issues of perception and social acceptance," Martijntje (Martina) SMITS ( Senior Researcher and Lecturer at Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development and Innovation, University of Utrecht). The expositeur has exposed how media and advertising are changing and manipulating the population vision on climate change.
  • "Political Economy and Climate Science: retrospective and prospective", Joyeeta GUPTA (Economics Professor, University of Amsterdam) The presentation has remarked that climate change is caused by rich countries that have emitted a lot of greenhouse gases and are still polluting because they are addicted to their luxurious lifestyle. We need public support to make a real change, we need to make our governments accountable not only for us but for the world community. No country and no one should be above the law, we have only one earth to share. Climate change is not only the government's problem, it is the problem of all of us.Round Table 2: From Rio to COP21, the science-society interface and the 20th anniversary of the International Journal of Sustainable Development (IJSD)