On September 27th, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Landesa, and Wake Forest Law School will be hosting a day-long conference on the intersection between land use, the climate crisis and clean energy transition, and human rights.
The climate crisis threatens to dramatically alter people’s relationships with the land on which they rely. Meanwhile, many climate solutions are themselves land-intensive, including solar and wind energy, carbon dioxide removal, and finding places for people displaced by climate change to live and grow food, thus potentially increasing competition for land.
This conference will analyze the critical role that land plays in achieving climate solutions, the degree to which climate change may impact land’s ability to provide a sustainable ecosystem, and the ways in which these land and climate interactions might affect land rights, human rights, and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
In particular, the conference will focus on:
- The necessity of land for many climate solutions, such as renewable energy, metals for energy efficient solutions, and carbon storage and sequestration;
- The increasing tension between insecure land tenure for communities reliant on land and climate solutions tied to land, as well as the potential for climate solutions to increase socially inclusive land uses;
- The consequences of climate-driven land scarcity and climate-solution land demands; and
- Sustainable and equitable solutions to some of the most challenging land-centric climate change issues, such as relocation of displaced persons and activities