Mark it in your calendars: The upcoming online conference CLIMATE 2011 will feature "Climate Change + disaster risk management"! See more on www.climate2011.net.

This year we again issue the “Best Paper Award” in collaboration with Emerald Publishers. Please vote for your favorite authors and chose your favorite papers from the four categories.

Win 1 of 10 free books on „Universities and Climate Change". E-mail to Johanna: (a) Header “CLIMATE 2010 Book Lottery”, (b) conference user name, (c) full postal address. Winners are informed by e-mail. Good luck!

Did you know? A special features of this year’s conference is the conference section CC at your fingertips which offers free learning material for lecturers and teachers. Climate change games provide a playful way of getting involved with the key conference themes and a CO₂ calculator allows conference participants to assess their own CO₂ footprint.

Take a look behind the scenes before the official conference start on 1 November.

Listen to ICIMOD’s Dr Arun B. Shrestha’s 20 minute lecture on Climate Change and its Impacts on Cryosphere and Water Resources of the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region - see menu Conference/Partner Podcasts or click here.

In the run up of COP 16 in Cancún/Mexico, CLIMATE 2010 features a new video podcast in which the Parliamentary State Secretary Katherina Reiche, Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in Germany, encourages the worldwide participants to seize the innovative online-climate conference for networking, discussing newest findings in climate research and for developing sustainable solutions.

Dr Norbert Roettgen, Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety of the Federal Republic of Germany, is the patron of the upcoming online climate conference CLIMATE 2010. Read more about the minister and his ministry's International Climate Initiative on the patronage or read the full press release.

All webpages of CLIMATE 2010 are hosted CO₂-neutral by the CLIMATE 2010 partner STRATO.

CO₂ emissions related to the use of participants´ personal computers during the online climate conference from 1-7 November 2010 will be compensated by our conference partner KlimaInvest. To guarantee a climate-neutral conference week, a wind energy park in Turkey is being financed according to the acknowleged WWF Gold Standard.

Format

CLIMATE 2010/KLIMA 2010 comprises the combination of a scientific symposium per se - for information exchange and knowledge transfer among the relevant stakeholders on the one hand - and accompanying interactive sections, participating researchers, policy-makers and further interested people, encouraging them to jointly discuss ways on how to overcome existing barriers towards global efforts in dealing with climate change.

Scientific symposium

At the heart of the on-line conference are four main categories of papers:

Category 1:
Geo-chemical and physical impacts of climate change on water supplies

Category 2:
Socio-economic aspects of climate change in relation to water supplies and use

Category 3:
Climate change, policy-making and sustainable water use

Category 4:
Projects which focus on addressing the links between climate change and sustainable water use, including educational and awareness-raising initiatives

Moreover, CLIMATE 2010/KLIMA 2010 will also pay special emphasis to research linking climate change with one or more of the Millennium Development Goals categories: poverty and hunger; universal primary education; gender equality and women's empowerment; child mortality; maternal health; HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases; as well as environmental sustainability.

Interactive sections

Special interactive features such as discussion fori, virtual blackboards for project and partner search, expert live chats and video podcasts will be available throughout the conference week, complemented by information on climate project financing.

A designated discussion section offers participants the opportunity to interact with the authors and have first hand insights into the latest research and project findings on matters related with water and climate change.

A dedicated conference section entitled “Climate Change at your fingertips” contains learning information and teaching modules for use by schoolchildren, hence catering for the specific information needs seen at the secondary level.

While many participants will mainly use the conference for information purposes, direct scientific exchanges and cooperation possibilities will be encouraged for joint activities and projects between the participants.