The annual Regional Action for Climate Change (RACC) meeting was held this year on the topics of climate change and regional conflicts: water, coast, ocean, extreme events; and on the impact of the Paris Agreement on local and regional action. Serageldin chaired a plenary session entitled “Integrating Adaptation into Socioeconomic and Environmental Policies and Action". The issues discussed by the panel were:
1. “The Paris Agreement: Can we integrate Adaptation and Mitigation to bridge the gap?” Prof. Jim Falk, Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Melbourne, Australia
2. “Adaptation Perspectives and Socio-economic and Environmental Policies” Dr. Rajib Shaw, Professor, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University, IGES senior Fellow, Japan
3. “Integrated Analysis of Mitigation and Adaptation” Dr. Kiyoshi Takahashi, Social and Environmental Systems Div., NIES, Japan
4. “ Future Earth: Multi-stakeholders Engagement” Dr. Fumiko Kasuga, Senior Fellow, NIES and Future Earth Global Hub Director-Japan
Ismail Serageldin was one of a small group who organized the RACC in 2009 as a side event of The Science and Technology in Society (STS) forum. It is now held as an annual meeting the day before the STS forum and formally connected to it. RACC was created to bring issues of climate science to the attention of the world’s business, policy and scientific leaders at the STS Forum, so as to build bridges between those who have expert knowledge and those with the power to take action. Serageldin is a member of the RACC Governing Board.