Climate Changed Urban Futures: imaginaries, experiments & justice in the Anthropocene city

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• Professor Harriet Bulkeley, Department of Geography, Durham University
• Thursday 22 November 2018, 17:00-18:00
• Large Lecture Theatre, Department of Geography, Downing Site.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact jb2012.

As a so-called global issue, the social and political response to climate change has traditionally been seen as a matter for international negotiations and the politics of national governments, transnational corporations and non-governmental organisations. However, over the past two decades it has become clear that climate change is an equally vital urban issue: as centres of population and economic activity, cities are thought to contribute significantly to overall emissions of greenhouse gases on the one hand, and to be vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on the other. Charting the rise and rise of climate change’s urban agenda and its relation to the changing landscape of global environmental governance, this lecture will reflect on how a geographical perspective and the traditions of nature/society research undertaken within the Cambridge Department can open up this agenda. So familiar has the notion of the climate-changed-city become, that imaginaries of its future theatres and possibilities now proliferate. Rather than being a singular urban cause, climate change has multiplied into a host of related narratives, from the smart city to green infrastructure, resilience to low carbon, its entry points opened up to a host of competing interests and contested visions of the future city. Such politics are not to be found in the traditional arenas of urban decision-making and planning, but rather assembled and galvanised through multiple forms of experimentation. This in turn has profound consequences for the nature of governance in the Anthropocene city and for questions of justice. Drawing on examples from research across different urban contexts, and ongoing work examining the ways in which ‘nature’ is providing solutions for urban sustainability challenges, the lecture will explore what it means to think geographically about climate change’s urban futures and the nature of the Anthropocene city.

This talk is part of the Centenary Lecture Series, Department of Geography series.

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• AUB_Cambridge Seminars
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