Global Shifts: Urbanization, Migration, and Climate Change
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Ambassador Thilmeeza Hussain, permanent representative of Maldives to the UN, speaks at the 2022 Global Shifts Colloquium | Photo by Eddy Marenco
Today, tens of millions of people move and are regularly displaced around the world through a combination of forces – environmental, societal, political, and security. Human movement and adaptation in response to ever changing catalysts has always been a salient feature of the global landscape.
Whether due to protracted conflict or political unrest, climate change or demographic shifts, human movement is often essential for communities to survive and thrive. Simultaneously, rapid urbanization has made cities home to 70 percent of the world’s population, resulting in a trend toward cities playing increasingly important roles on the world stage and being in the vanguard for global solutions.
At a moment when the world is seeing the greatest level of displacement since World War II, and the climate emergency grows more acute by the day, these complex and intersecting global phenomena – urbanization, migration, and climate change – demand sophisticated and coordinated action from researchers and policymakers working in concert.
The Global Shifts research theme examines these phenomena, highlights the specific challenges their intersections produce, and charts a path that allows for the best global policy responses to emerge.
Global Shifts Colloquium: Living with Extreme Heat: Our Shared Future | March 21-22, 2023
Perry World House’s 2023 Global Shifts Colloquium will explore how to manage the growing global threat of extreme heat, as climate change causes temperatures to spike around the world. It will feature two public events: one focused on building urban resilience to extreme heat, featuring Chief Heat Officers from several major cities; and one on the dangers of extreme heat, featuring bestselling author and journalist Jeff Goodell.
Workshop: Global Climate Finance | October 3, 2022
Together with the Climate Center of the Environmental, Social and Governance Initiative at the Wharton School, Perry World House convened this workshop to examine the role of finance in addressing the climate emergency. It explored how to increase finance to meet adaptation needs globally, especially for those countries most vulnerable to climate impacts, as well as how to assure that financial resources were made more accessible and impactful. The convening also explored the international financial architecture needed to meet the most ambitious of global climate goals and spur a just transition to a post-carbon world.
2022 Global Order Colloquium Report and Thought Pieces
This report looks back at Perry World House’s 2022 Global Shifts Colloquium, "Islands on the Climate Front Line: Risk and Resilience." This event explored how small island developing states, or SIDS – which are among the most climate vulnerable countries in the world – are responding to the climate emergency. Alongside the report, we released a series of thought pieces from experts who attended the convening, examining how to
Borders and Boundaries Project
Do international political borders matter in the modern world, and, if so, in what ways? The Borders and Boundaries Project at Perry World House is researching how political life both affects and is affected by international borders and border security policies. This interdisciplinary, multi-method effort is directed by Professor Beth Simmons and is composed of research teams studying border politics across a variety of different research areas.
Great Powers and Urbanization Project
Over the course of the early twenty-first century, cities have increasingly moved into the international arena, taking on a growing role in global issues. Great power politics and urbanization are not separate phenomena. Peace, power, and prosperity in the twenty-first century will require urban expertise, as will solving global problems around climate change, migration, and equitable development. The Great Powers and Urbanization Project, or GPUP, is a collaboration of global leaders in international and urban affairs: the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House, the University of Melbourne’s Connected Cities Lab, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and the Argentine Council for International Relations (Consejo Argentino para las Relaciones Internacionales).
