Interdisciplinary Conference on Climate Change at the MPIfG

The MPIfG hosted an interdisciplinary conference on the “Temporalities of Climate Change” at the end of October. Fifteen researchers from Germany and abroad met in Cologne to discuss the problem of climate change from diverse temporal perspectives, with a focus on the tension between long-term scenarios and short-term political and economic planning. Contributions explored the central challenges of climate policy, such as the dilemmas arising from simultaneous social transformations, criticism of the economic practice of discounting, and the need to give more thought to alternative visions of the future in order to expand scope for political action. Jens Beckert, one of the co-organizers with Melika Arslan and Lisa Suckert, drew the event to a close by highlighting the inadequacy of current climate protection measures and the urgent need, for the economy, politics, science, and civil society, to overcome the central contradiction between immediate, short-term concerns and longer-term consequences.