ETH Global Lecture Series: Nature-Based Solutions Are Not Just For The Climate
30 June 2022 - Online Event - In this conversation we ask why we should care about nature-based solutions, beyond resolving the climate crisis.
This event has been cancelled
Free public online event
Moderated by Chris Luebkeman, ETH Zurich
Thursday, 30 June 2022
15.00 - 16.00 Zurich (CEST)
Ecologists are perennial pessimists… but both speakers in our next Global Lecture believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel. In this 1-hour conversation moderated by ETH Zurich’s Head of Foresight, Chris Luebkeman, we ask why we should care about nature-based solutions, beyond resolving the climate crisis.
From her position as Head of the Nature Action Agenda for the World Economic Forum (WEF), Akanksha Khatri is well-versed in the question of facilitating dialogues on climate topics with various stakeholders. Indeed, bringing these actors together is what the WEF is famous for. The difficulty begins when the realpolitik comes into play: the current economic dilemma of certain actors means they sometimes face choices that amount to saving a forest, or cutting it in order not to go bankrupt. Thus, not everyone – consumers, governments, businesses – has a choice…
Throughout his career, Prof. em. Dr. Peter Edwards saw many projects which highlighted that nature-based solutions work, both in his research on sustainability and in his former role as the Director of the Singapore-ETH Centre. For him, the whole thing about nature-based solutions is the need to take a long-term perspective. The next generation needs to be factored into this equation and must be a major component of any pathway to sustainability. Nature-based solutions are essential; so how do we make it more profitable to invest in nature? How do we make it a political, economic and societal imperative?
external pageAkanksha Khatri is Head of Nature Action Agenda for World Economic Forum’s Platform for Global Public Goods. Prior to this, she worked as Lead on Government Engagement for India and South Asia followed by an extended remit as Chief of Staff and Head of Strategy and Per-formance for the Forum’s Regional and Government Engagement globally. She has also had experience working at HT Media Ltd. which is the second-largest media company in India. She holds a BA (Hons.) from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India and M.A. in International Affairs from Columbia University, USA. She was a Global Leadership Fellow with the World Economic Forum (2013-16).
Peter J. Edwards has been Full Professor of Plant Ecology at the ETH Zurich and director of the Geobotanical Institute since September 1993. In this institute he directs the research group for community and ecosystem ecology.
Prof. Edwards was born on July 29, 1948 in Durban, South Africa, and is a British citizen. He studied botany at the University of Cambridge in England, writing his doctoral dissertation on nu-trientcycling in a tropical mountain rain forest in New Guinea. In 1973 he was appointed lecturer in ecology at the University of Southampton. During his stay at Southampton he co-founded and directed an interdisciplinary environmental research institute, the GeoData Institute.
His research concentrates on ecosystems and large scale ecological processes which cover large areas. Many of his projects focus on the application of ecological research to environmental concerns. He has written over one hundred articles and three books for the most part dealing with such topics as the nutrient cycling in ecosystems, the interaction between plants and herbi-vores, plant ecology in river ecosystems, and the application of GIS in ecology. At the present time his research themes are the biodiversity in agroecosystems, the effects of grazing cattle and horses on the vegetation and the relationship between the species composition and ecosystems function in grasslands.