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Earlier this month, the Association for Conflict Resolution’s Environment and Public Policy section gathered at the University of Denver for their annual meeting, hosted by UNCG member DU's Conflict Resolution Institute. This year, the EPP conference focused on"Managing Climate Change through Collaborative Governance: Addressing Policy Challenges Globally and Locally. "PCI Board Co-Chair and former Wyoming Governor Jim Geringer gave the keynote talk "Whose Climate Are We Trying To Change?…Getting Personal About Conflict and Consensus.”
EPP conference organizer and UNCG member Michael Elliot of Georgia's Consortium on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution was struck by the general optimism expressed by many speakers as to the relative difficulties that adaptation strategies would face compared to mitigation strategies. “The thinking was that mitigation strategies have co-benefits, such as energy conservation, while adaptation strategies generally do not, and often result in significant losers (e.g., loss of property values, expensive infrastructure development). I suspect that mitigation strategies will become equally conflictual once we move past the obvious energy efficiency issues, which we should have been doing 40 years ago,” he said.
In addition, UNCG attendees at the meeting reported that the issue of using DR techniques to advocate for legislative changes arose in a number of sessions, which they felt was a significant and new debate for the field. UNCG member John Stephens of UNC's Public Dispute Resolution program thought that “the most interesting piece, for me, was the challenge of how close facilitators and conflict resolution organizers get to the legislative process, and the possible / likely sacrifice inclusion.”
Read notes on the final session "Key Challenges, Successes and Next Steps, Opportunities and Obligations to Institute Collaborative Efforts into Global Climate Change Governance" (PDF 55KB), provided by PCI Climate and Clean Energy Program Manager Peter Murchie.
View the details of the conference sessions and check for further reports on the conference on the ACR EPP website.
We are continuing to collect your stories on climate and clean energy. What projects have you done or are you working on that relate to climate and clean energy? Have you come across any good case studies to share with other UNCG members interested in this area? Contact Peter Murchie or Sarah Giles to share your stories.
At the Democracy Imperative / Deliberative Democracy Consortium No Better Time: Promising Opportunities in Deliberative Democracy for Educators and Practitioners (July 8-11 in Durham, NH), UNCG will hold a meeting on July 10, 4:00-5:30 (Eastern), open to anyone interested in learning about UNCG and with some link to a college or university program that focuses on public service or community engagement. Part 1 of the meeting will provide an overview to UNCG, describe activities and goals, and describe membership. Part 2 will focus on current UNCG members – specific project updates, plans for activities and a November 2009 UNCG meeting. All conference participants are welcome. In addition, representatives from several UNCG member centers will be leading learning exchanges thoughout the conference on topics such as:
Contact Bob Jones (Florida State University), John Stephens (UNC at Chapel Hill), or Sarah Giles at PCI for further information.
From the US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution
On May 6 – 8, the US Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution hosted a national strategic planning session - Technology in Environmental Conflict Resolution (ECR) – in Tucson, AZ. The event brought together thought leaders, technology specialists, and ECR practitioners with experience and mutual appreciation for the value technology can bring to ECR processes – and for what ECR can bring to the development of future technologies. The Session opened with a technology fair, showcasing the wide range of technologies and their applications to environmental/natural resource management decision making, public participation, and collaboration. Subsequent workshop sessions engaged participants in discussions about the opportunities and challenges of ensuring effective integration of tools and process, and in identifying tangible and specific next steps for improving and promoting this work.
Participants jointly created a report describing a shared vision for integrating new technologies into ECR best practices to support transparency, collaboration, effective partnerships, and improved decision making in ECR. The report offers a brief summary of the conversations and plans that emerged from the Technology in Environmental Conflict Resolution (ECR) National Strategic Planning Session. This document consolidates the work of the synthesis committee, incorporating subsequent edits from participant discussions during the Session. This version is being shared with participants for review and comment, to ensure an accurate portrayal of the discussions and the plans that emerged. The intention here is to provide a succinct record of the Session as a reference point for ongoing conversations, and as a starting point for implementing the plans that have been identified.
A separate, living version of this report, posted as a wiki-document, is also available for participant editing (website under development). This second document is provided to encourage ongoing exchange and debate about these issues, to enable further development of the themes, ideas and plans that emerged during the meeting.
Over the past several weeks, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has asked the public to contribute in three phases in crafting final recommendations on open government. Phase I, the Brainstorming Phase, elicited ideas for the Open Government recommendations, while Phase II, the Discussion Phase, utilized the OSTP's blog to deepen the conversation about topics raised during the first Phase.
Now, the Open Government Initiative is moving towards the Drafting Phase, asking the public to take part in a collaborative drafting of final recommendations in three topic areas, transparency, participation, and collaboration. Drafting of recommendations will continue through midnight Eastern Friday, July 3rd. Voting will stay open through the holiday weekend, until 5pm Eastern Monday, July 6th. We encourage all UNCG members to take some time to review, vote for, edit, and contribute to the comments.
We are working on creating spaces on the web for UNCG members to interact, share, and network with one another. You can now find PCI on Facebook, follow our feed on Twitter, watch our videos on YouTube, and join the UNCG group on LinkedIn.
UNCG: News from the Network will be taking a break for the month of July, but we hope you follow our activities on the above and we look forward to gathering with those members at No Better Time on July 10th. We'll be back in August!