1-13 December, 2008; Poznań, Poland. During first two weeks of December, more than 12,000 participants from all over the world, including delegates from 180 countries, gathered in Poznań, Poland to discuss the most urgent challenges of climate change during the14th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)...

What can technologies do for global climate protection? What kind of technological innovations can we expect? How can we support innovation without damaging the environment? Econsense addressed these questions at its "In Dialogue 2008" conference, titled "Klimatech- Technologies for climate protection".

On 8 and 9 May, 2008, IHDP's Scientific Committee Chair, Dr. Oran Young, and IHDP's Executive Director, Dr. Andreas Rechkemmer, visited Brussels on official mission to the European Commission. Doctors Young and Rechkemmer presented the IHDP's Strategic Plan for the next decade...

An important part of IHDP's mission is to promote scientific research on human dimensions of global environmental change as well as to catalyze the exchange between scientists and policy-makers. Being aware of the fact that incoming generations are going to play crucial role in the challenging the consequences of Global Environmental Change...

Starting with the question: ‘To what extent are human societies adapting their capacity for learning and foresight to deal with new global challenges?’, the Resilience 2008 conference, the first major event focused on the notion resilience, aimed to be a space for bringing together scientists and professionals working with the complex dynamics of interconnected social-ecological systems...

...The scurry for IHDP pamphlets as the information session began was a clear indication of the students’ interest in the IHDP. Simultaneously, the Secretariat received numerous requests for information on the IHDP internship program. The IHDP representatives took this opportunity to discuss how the human dimensions of environmental change are strongly linked to the study of geography....

On the 18th of March 2008, IHDP’s secretariat was pleased to welcome a group of young professionals of the newly established DIE & Capacity Building International (InWEnt) programme “Managing Global Governance” (MGG) to an informal meeting

The IHDP executive director, Andreas Rechkemmer, along with scientific officers, Falk Schmidt, and new scientific committee member Ilan Chabay were in the United States from 5 to 14 March 2008. The mission aimed at discussing IHDP’s research and education plans and to strengthen existing ties, and building new relationships with some of the United States’ most prominent...

The IHDP Secretariat received yesterday a group of students and faculty from the Duquesne University's MBA Sustainable Enterprise program Duquesne University's MBA Sustainable Enterprise program. The group is visiting Germany as a part of its course.

The new issue of the IHDP Update Magazine is out. With articles from Oran Young, Rik Leemans, Lydia Brito, Joao Noronha, and Susanne C. Moser, this issue goes into depth about IHDP's strategic plan, what it means for IHDP, and for the scientific community at large. Frank Biermann, Carlo Jaeger and Peijun Shi, and Sander E. van der Leeuw introduce three new initiatives that IHDP is working to put into action. It is a good overview of the successes, challenges, and goals IHDP has right now, and sets a course for IHDP in the next eight years.

Over the course of the past years—and with increasing urgency in the past year—there has been growing attention to the scientific consensus on climate change and the likely impacts those changes will herald for society. The IPCC’s Working Group I report to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated more conclusively than in the 2001 Third Assessment Report that the Earth’s climate is being altered by the effects of humankind’s activities

Members of the IHDP Secretariat visited the Delhi Sustainable Development and Climate Change Summit (DSDS 2008), organized by TERI in New Delhi from February 7th to 9th, 2008. The activity was a part of the Programme's latest mission to organize the Open Meeting in October. The conference concluded that although the impacts of climate change are global and unequivocal, they are felt most by the poorer sections of society who contribute least in polluting the environment.

"In few words: my time in Germany has been a unique and fascinating experience. My initial expectations were the same of anyone who, like me, had never gone through a similar situation: what to expect this trip? How will be my day by day in a culture so different from my own? How to face a reality so different from mine, starting by the language? All these doubts and fears have been overcome by this six-month stay in Germany."

The IHDP Secretariat convened two side events at the UNCCC convention in Bali this December. Focus of the events was the use of cutting-edge research on the human dimensions of global environmental change to inform policy-makers on climate change policy decisions. The theme was perfectly relevant to the UNCCC whose goal is to create a new international climate change agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, and the presentations were well received.

"Our achievements in 2007 are very positive. The past year was a period of renewal and strategic development for the International Human Dimensions Programme. To mark the close of its first decade in 2006, IHDP’s institutional sponsors organized an external review to assess the Programme’s performance during the period 1996-2006 and to provide advice on priorities for the second decade. The review committee concluded that IHDP has come of age scientifically..."