Events

This event is part of the Melbourne Climate Futures seminar series, which spotlights interdisciplinary research on climate change taking place within the University of Melbourne and beyond.

Social-movement activism on climate change has expanded dramatically in recent years. Yet, much recent political science work on climate change has downplayed the climate movement’s influence, arguing that industrial actors are the prime-movers of climate politics.

So, can the climate movement shape climate politics? And if so, how? 

Drawing on a mixed-methods study of campaigns to end new licences for oil and gas exploration and production in the UK and Norway, this presentation will argue that a consequential way in which climate-movement actors can influence politics is by “climatising” issues not previously framed through a climate lens, turning those issues into salient items on the political agenda.

Prima facie evidence of the impact of this agenda-shift on the positions of other political actors in each country, including mainstream political parties, will also be presented.

Melbourne Energy Institute public lecture / Hybrid event: Power system planning under multi-scale climate-induced uncertainty

The Melbourne Energy Institute invites you to a public lecture by Assistant Professor Ángela Flores of the University of Chile, who will discuss how power systems are facing increasing pressure from climate change.

The rise in global temperatures, more variable precipitation patterns, and the increase in frequency and severity of extreme weather events pose substantial risks for power systems across multiple time scales.

In this talk, a comprehensive power system planning model is introduced to anticipate both short and long-term uncertainties by leveraging multi-scale stochastic programming. Furthermore, a novel approach is presented for constructing multi-scale scenario trees to represent climate-induced uncertainty, using historical weather data and future climate projections. Finally, suitable decomposition methods for capacity planning under uncertainty and possible enhancements are explored.